MUSICA ROMANA Motets and Madrigals of the Roman Baroque

photo: Irena Filuś

Łukasz Macioszek

Łukasz Macioszek began his music education and playing the double bass at 17 years old. Within four years, he graduated from the second degree of Juliusz Zarębski Music School in Inowrocław. Next, he went to college at the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz while also studying at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz at the Faculty of Instrumental Music earning a master’s degree in double bass under Joanna Krempeć-Kaczor.

He began playing as a soloist with the Orchestra of the Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz and had some 800 performances and concerts to his name already in his sophomore year. He has also worked with other orchestras, including the Pomeranian Philharmonic, Toruń Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, {oh!} Oistorical Orchestra and the Polish Film Music Orchestra.

Łukasz Macioszek performs as a chamber musician with such groups as the Ensemble Inégalité, Lutatic Quartet, Nova Quartet, Interperata, and Raffa Quartet. He works with the Jan Paderewski Pomeranian Orchestra in Bydgoszcz. He performs at many concerts and festivals in Poland and abroad, including in Czechia, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands.

He has taken part in many music courses and workshops, including in Bydgoszcz, Campobasso, Brno, Lucca, Freiburg and the Hague, led by distinguished double bassists and teachers such as Zoran Marković, Giuseppe Ettore, Miloslav Jelínek, Diego Zacharies, Tobias Glöckler, Wolfgang Harrer, Christian Zincke, Gottfried von der Goltz, Margharet Urquhart and James Munro.

As a chamber musician, Łukasz Macioszek won 3rd Prize at the Polish Chamber Ensemble Auditions in Warsaw and an honourable mention at the Autumn Confrontation of Chamber Ensembles in Inowrocław. As a soloist, he won First Prize at the 9th International Music Competition in Belgrade and the 1st North International Music Competition in Stockholm, 2nd Prize at the 3rd Geneva International Music Competition and the 1st International Music Competition in Brussels. He was also a semi-finalist of the EOEA Orchestra Competition at the 6th European Bass Congress in Lucca.

The artist specialises in historically informed performance on double bass and violone.

He completed his studies cum laude in baroque double bass/violone under Christian Zincke at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz with an entry in the golden book of graduates. He works with the Ensemble Inégalité, Interperata, Early Music Academy, the {oh!} Oistorical Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. He is currently perfecting his skill in Margharet Urquhart’s violone class at the Royal Conservatory, the Hague.

Today, Łukasz Macioszek is a Faculty of Instrumental Music doctoral student at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz.

photo: Anna Świeczkowska

Witosława Frankowska

Chamber musician, ethnomusicologist, and graduate of the Faculty of Music Theory and Composition at the Academy of Music in Gdańsk. In college, she developed an interest in early music, especially playing basso continuo on the harpsichord and organ. Supported by her practice in the early music class taught at the Academy of Music in Gdańsk by Ewa Stąporek-Pospiech, she began a collaboration with the Cappella Gedanensis. She has taken part in many master’s courses under the auspices of the International Summer Early Music Academy in Wilanów and in Bad Lauchstädt. 
 

Since 1993, Witosława Frankowska has been working at Gdańsk’s Academy of Music Faculty of Vocalism and Acting, where she runs classes that prepare young singers for practical Baroque repertory performance. She also works with the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Sopot, Polish Chamber Choir, Crown Tribunal Orchestra, Progress Chamber Orchestra and many distinguished Polish soloists. She took part in preparing and performing several Baroque operas, oratorios, masses, passions and cantatas in Poland and internationally. 
 

In 2013 she received her PhD in humanities with honours at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, and in 2018 her postdoctoral degree in art, specialising in instrumental studies, at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz University of Music in Łódź.
 

Besides early music, Witosława Frankowska also has a fondness for the broadly-understood music culture of her home region. She has written musicological entries for the Muzyka Kaszub [Music of Kashubia] lexicon (2005), Słowniku symboli, pamięci i tradycji kultury. Gniazdo Gryfa [Griffin’s Nest. Dictionary of Symbols, Memory and Cultural Tradition] (2020) and the monograph  Kolędowanie na Kaszubach [Carolling in Kashubia] (2015); since 2002, she has been running her series of concerts called “Meetings with the Music of Kashubia at the Museum of Kashubian and Pomeranian Literature and Music in Wejherowo. Laureate of the Stolem Medal.