Pavel KOTLA, conductor

Is considered to be one of the leading Polish conductors of his generation. His conducting, which has been often described as "charismatic", "passionate" and "enthusiastic", has at its core a comprehensive musical training as a violinist from the age of 7, and subsequently as a conductor and musicologist.

Born in Szczecin, Poland, he graduated as a violinist from Karlowicz Secondary School of Music in Poznan. He studied symphony and opera conducting with Boguslaw Madey and Ryszard Dudek at Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw. He received his Master of Studies graduate degree in performance practice and musicology from Oxford University, where he studied with Andrew Parrott (Taverner Choir and Players) and Edward Higginbottom (New College Choir). He also took part in international music master-classes in Vienna, Innsbruck (Austria), Siena and Bressanone (Italy), and with the legendary conducting teacher Jorma Panula.

He is presently the music director of Redhill Sinfonia (est. 1891) and Leicester Symphony Orchestra. He is also the principal guest conductor of the City of Peterborough Symphony Orchestra and the staff conductor of "Opera na Zamku" in Szczecin, Poland. He conducts extensively in Britain and Poland, and he has also worked in Germany, Austria, Brasil and Sweden.

In 1993-94 he worked as an assistant conductor at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester (UK). In 1995 he organized and conducted in Warsaw the first concert of full Polish orchestra of period instruments Arte dei Suonatori (now winners of such prestigious prizes as 'Diapason d'Or' and Gramophone's 'Record of the Month' awards). In 1997/98 he was associated with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London as the Performance Fellow in conducting and the assistant conductor to their prestigious Opera Department. He was the music director of Oxford Symphonic Orchestra (1996-1997), Oxford University Philharmonia (1997-1998), Stevenage Symphony Orchestra (2001-2004), London Hounslow Youth Orchestra (2004-2005) and Harpenden Choral Society (2001-2006). During the season 2005/06 he worked as the music director of Witold Lutoslawski Symphony Orchestra of Plock in Poland.

As a regular assistant conductor to Sir Simon Rattle between 1998 and 2003 he worked on such projects as Towards Millennium and Hear Now Festivals (Birmingham and South Bank Centre), CD recordings of Szymanowski's "King Roger" and "Harnasie" (EMI) and the Millennium Concert (Ely Cathedral) in which he took part as the second conductor in the BBC live broadcast of the premier of Mark Anthony Turnage's "About Time".

He worked with professional ensembles in the UK and internationally, such as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, King's Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players and Drottningholm Barockensemble in Sweden. He has also appeared as a guest conductor with Volante Strings, Nottingham Philharmonic Orchestra, Wimbledon Symphony Orchestra, the City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra, the City of Peterborough Symphony Orchestra and Essex Youth Orchestra. He worked with no less than fifteen professional orchestras in Poland (in Bialystok, Czestochowa, Gdansk, Kalisz, Kielce, Koszalin, Lublin, Lodz, Lomza, Olsztyn, Plock, Poznan, Rzeszow, Szczecin, Walbrzych and Wroclaw).

In April 2004 he received a medal from the Association of Polish Orchestras and Choirs in recognition of the quality of his work in Poland.

With his fast developing career, during the next months he is scheduled to have a number of first appearances with further professional orchestras in Poland and internationally, such as National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Katowice), Silesian Philharmonic (Katowice), Pomeranian Philharmonic (Bydgoszcz), Rzeszow Philharmonic and St. Petersburg Philharmonic (St. Petersburg, Russia).