Canadian conductor takes over Kraków Philharmonic

His three-year contract begins in the autumn and the programme of his inaugural concert on 6 November will include two Polish works - Karol Szymanowski's Concert Overture and Ignacy Jan Paderewski's Fantasy for Piano & Orchestra – alongside Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony.

Born in Malta, Charles Olivieri-Munroe grew up in Toronto where he studied piano performance before taking up conducting studies at the Janacek Academy of Music in Brno and at L’Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.

In 2000, he won first prize in the ‘Prague Spring International Music Festival’ Conducting Competition, and the success marked the beginning of a fine international career.

Currently based in Prague, Olivieri-Munroe has conducted numerous orchestras on five continents and has made recordings for SONY, RCA Red Seal, NAXOS, SMS Classical, and Naïve Records.

Olivieri-Munroe conducted the Kraków Philharmonic earlier this year and in 2013. Under his contract, he will work with the orchestra for seven weeks in the 2015/16 season, and for ten weeks in the 2016/17 and 2017/18 seasons.

He told Kraków daily Dziennik Polski that he is not afraid of the language barrier in his new post.

“While living in Prague I learnt Czech and I have a few words of Polish as well. The members of the orchestra can speak English and so I don’t expect any communication problems. I’ve conducted a lot in Poland and Russia and the Slavonic world is not alien to me,” he said. (mk/nh).