Tomasz Golka, conductor, Winner of the 2003 Eduardo Mata Conducting Competition

Biography

"There were beautiful and exciting things in the playing: Golka displayed an understanding of the complementary roles of momentum and elasticity in [Richard] Strauss’s music," writes Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe. "Babbitt’s From the Psalter is as complicated and striking in meter, language, and emotional directness as the texts. The string orchestra under Golka played it confidently, and Golka achieved a Mozartian transparency."

Since winning 1st Prize at the 2003 Eduardo Mata International Conducting Competition, 32-year-old conductor Tomasz Golka has appeared in performances of over 100 major works with such orchestras as the Seattle, Fort Worth, Louisville, Spoleto USA, Charleston, Lansing, and Florida West Coast symphony orchestras. He has also appeared with Buffalo Philharmonic, where he replaced the ailing scheduled conductor on just a few hours notice and lead the orchestra in an enthusiastically-received performance.

As a conducting fellow at the 2006 Tanglewood Music Festival, he worked with James Levine, shared the podium with Bernard Haitink, and conducted a historic performance of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale with legendary composers Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and John Harbison as narrators.

Other recent highlights include a highly successful European debut in the city of his birth, Warsaw, Poland, conducting Sinfonia Varsovia in National Symphony Hall with his pianist-brother Adam Golka as soloist.

Golka has served as Cover Conductor for the Cleveland Orchestra as well as the Houston and New Jersey symphony orchestras.

He has toured Mexico several times, appearing with virtually all of the country's top orchestras, including those of UNAM, Xalapa, Queretaro, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, and Yucatan.

Upcoming engagements include Mexico City Philharmonic and Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela.

An avid supporter of living composers, Golka has several world premieres under his belt, including Mikołaj Górecki’s Sinfonietta, Fabián Panisello’s Cuadernos para Orquesta, and Eleanor Trawick's Triple Play.

Golka is currently in his first year as Music Director of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra. Past positions held by Golka include Music Director of the Ball State Symphony Orchestra and Opera and the Bakersfield Youth Symphony (2003-04), Founder and Artistic Director of the Chamber Music at All Saints (2000-02) and the Bloomington Chamber Orchestra (1998-99), and, as a violinist, Concertmaster of Spoleto USA Festival Orchestra and the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra (1999-2000).

Golka, who lives in New York City, studied conducting with David Effron at Indiana University and Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar at the Peabody Conservatory. He also holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in violin from Rice University, where he was a violin student of Kenneth Goldsmith and Sergiu Luca.

He was a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in 2002 and has conducted in Master Classes for such distinguished conductors as Yuri Temirkanov and David Zinman.