Marta Gardolińska is currently Music Director of Opéra national de Lorraine and Principal Guest Conductor of Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona. She came to international attention in 2018 as Young Conductor in Association at the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra where she conducted two highly successful subscription concerts. This led to a Dudamel Fellowship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic during the 2019/20 season, which included an invitation to be second conductor to Gustavo Dudamel for their GRAMMY® Award–winning live Deutsche Grammophon recording of Ives’s Symphony No. 4. Gardolińska then returned to Los Angeles to make her début with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra followed by an immediate reinvitation.

Last season Gardolińska made her débuts with the Kammerorchester Potsdam, BBC Scottish Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony. Gardolińska also returned to the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife after opening their previous season, and conducted performances of Haydn’s The Creation with the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona.

Recent highlights have included débuts with the London Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Along with her work as a symphonic conductor, she is active in the field of opera. During the 2020/21 season, she made her hugely successful French début with Opéra national de Lorraine conducting a new production of Zemlinsky’s Der Traumgörge, and the 2021/22 season saw acclaimed productions of Messager’s Fortunio in Nancy, and her début at Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg conducting Carmen with Stéphanie d’Oustrac. During the 2022/23 season, she conducted a much-anticipated new production of Manru by Paderewski and a revival of La traviata at Opéra national de Lorraine. Between 2013 and 2015, she served as the second conductor with the company Johann-Strauss-Operette-Wien, learning the purest style of the Viennese musical tradition. Last season in Nancy, Gardolińska conducted performances of Haydn’s The Creation along with her regular subscription weeks. 

Gardolińska studied conducting at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In 2016, she was awarded the title “Outstanding Pole in Austria” for her efforts in popularizing Polish culture and music outside the country.

Angela Hewitt occupies a unique position among today’s leading pianists. With a wide-ranging repertoire and frequent appearances in recital and with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia, she is also an award-winning recording artist whose performances of Bach have established her as one of the composer’s foremost interpreters. In 2020 she received the City of Leipzig Bach Medal—a huge honour that for the first time in its 17-year history was awarded to a woman.

Conducting from the piano, Hewitt has led the Toronto and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, Hong Kong and Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestras, Lucerne Festival Strings, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Swedish and Zurich Chamber Orchestras, Camerata Salzburg, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, New York’s Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Japan’s Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, and Tonkunstler Orchestra at Vienna’s Musikverein. The 2023/24 season saw her perform with orchestras in Italy, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Switzerland, and the UK.

Elsewhere, Hewitt continues to present recitals, including concerts and festival appearances in Boston, Baltimore, Toronto, Ottawa, Rome, Zurich, Copenhagen, Cambridge, and Stresa. She is also an artist-in-residence at London’s Wigmore Hall, where, back in 2016, she launched her Bach Odyssey, performing the complete keyboard works of Bach in a series of 12 recitals across the world.

Hewitt’s award-winning cycle for Hyperion Records of all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times). Her discography also includes albums of Couperin, Rameau, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Fauré, Debussy, Chabrier, Ravel, Messiaen, and Granados. In 2015 she was inducted into Gramophone magazine’s Hall of Fame thanks to her popularity with music lovers around the world. In 2023, Hewitt’s complete catalogue became available on all major streaming platforms.

Born into a musical family, Hewitt began her piano studies at age 3, performing in public at 4 and a year later winning her first scholarship. She studied with Jean-Paul Sévilla at the University of Ottawa, and in 1985 won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition, which launched her career. In 2018 Hewitt received the Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2015 she received the highest honour from her native country—becoming a Companion of the Order of Canada (held by only 165 living Canadians at any time). In 2006 she was awarded an OBE from Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, has seven honorary doctorates, and is a Visiting Fellow of Peterhouse College, Cambridge.