“Wielding a gorgeous 1685 Stradivarius, Wawrowski excels in dark lustre and is magnificently supported by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Grzegorz Nowak. It all makes for a genuinely exciting and fresh account of one of the repertoire warhorses”.

G E O F F B R O W N,  T H E  T I M E S

Janusz Wawrowski is recognized as one of the most outstanding and experienced violinists  of his generation. He received widespread public attention in 2007 with his first solo album, Paganini’s Caprices, released on CD Accord. The violinist impressed the audience and critics with his performance of all 24 Op.1 Caprices during a single concert, and the album’s success led Warner Classics to reissue it in 2016.

His solo career brings him to perform in a number of the world’s most important concert halls, including: Musikverein in Vienna, Wigmore Hall in London, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Beethoven-Saal in Stuttgart, Seoul Arts Center, Auditorio National de Musica in Madrid, National Philharmonic Hall in Vilnius, Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, De Doelen in Rotterdam, Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Teatro Teresa Carreῆo in Caracas, National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw, NFM in Wrocław, NOSPR in Katowice, and the Philharmonic Hall of the M. Karłowicz in Szczecin. M. Karłowicz Philharmonic Hall in Szczecin.

Janusz Wawrowski has worked with renowned orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, the Orchestra of the Grand Theater in Prague, the Symphoniker Hamburg, the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester, the Orquestra Classica Santa Cecilia and the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. He is regularly invited to all orchestras in Poland, among them the National Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the M. Karłowicz Philharmonic Orchestra in Szczecin, the National Forum of Music and many others.

The artist has worked with prominent conductors, including: Douglas Bostock, Krzysztof Urbański, Gabriel Chmura, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Giancarlo Guerrero, Jacek Kaspszyk, Daniel Raiskin, Grzegorz Nowak, Patrick Hahn, Conrad van Alphen, Łukasz Borowicz, Monika Wolińska, Mykola Diadiura, Agnieszka Duczmal, Tomáš Netopil, Juozas Domarkas, Ramon Gamba, and Antoni Wit.

He also appeared at a number of renowned festivals – Chopin and His Europe, Eufonie, Salzburger Festspiele, Hemsing Festival, Odessa Classics Festival, Polish Music Festival in Krakow, Festival of First Performances in Katowice and the International Chamber Music Festival in Ede, Netherlands.

Janusz Wawrowski has been associated with the Warner Classics label for many years, for which he has released seven solo albums and a number of singles. His recordings bring him excellent critics’ reviews and many notable awards. His album Phoenix, received nominations for ICMA 2021, PdSK, Opus Klassik 2021 and Fryderyk 2021, and was chosen album of the month on the UK’s Presto Classic and album of the week on London’s Classic fm, Norddeutscher Rundfunk and Polish Radio Dwójka.

His album  Hidden Violin, received the 2019 Fryderyk Award, the most important phonographic prize in Poland.

The album Sequenza, released in 2017, was rated 4* in the UK’s The Guardian, and Janusz Wawrowski performed selected pieces live on BBC3. The album won the 2017 Fryderyk Award in the solo recital category and was nominated for the 2017 International Classical Music Awards.

2014’s Aurora quickly won praise from the professional music press around the world. Excellent reviews were published in Strings Magazine, The Strad, Pizzicato, Huffington Post and numerous Polish press, among others.

The artist also recorded music by Jan A. P. Kaczmarek for the Hollywood films Evening (dir. Lajos Koltai), Get Low (dir. Aaron Schneider) and I’ll Find You (dir. Martha Cooldige).

An important part of Janusz Wawrowski’s career is the interpretation and research of Polish music, which he has been trying to bring to the public for many years as the initiator and artistic director of international festivals – Music on the Heights (2009-2010) and Musical Spaces (since 2011).

It has become his great passion to discover and perform the forgotten works of great native composers – Ludomir Różycki, Mieczyslaw Karłowicz, Zygmunt Noskowski and Grażyna Bacewicz. This led to a unique reconstruction of Różycki’s Violin Concerto, headed by the artist in cooperation with Ryszard Bryla.  The piece disappeared in Warsaw, ruined by the Uprising in 1944. Thanks to the original excerpts of the orchestration found by the violinist, it has been possible to re-create this rare work in a reliable way. Janusz Wawrowski, together with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Grzegorz Nowak, made the first recording  of the concerto, which was released on Phoenix (Warner Classics).

The reconstruction of the work had its concert premiere during the renowned Chopin and His Europe festival at the National Theater in Warsaw, and later also appeared at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw as part  of the Eufonie festival. Janusz Wawrowski performed the Concerto accompanied by Sinfonia Varsovia at both of these concerts.

The artist gave many premieres of violin concertos. Tomasz J. Opałka, Marcin Markowicz, Norbert Palej, Dariusz Przybylski and Albena Petrovic have written works dedicated to him.

In the 2024/2025 concert season, Janusz Wawrowski will also focus his artistic activity around  the works of Grazyna Bacewicz, the most outstanding violin virtuoso and composer of the 20th century, and one of the first in history. Among other works, the artist will perform her Violin Concertos.

Janusz Wawrowski was born in Konin. He is a graduate and professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. He improved his skills under the guidance of Professor Mirosław Ławrynowicz, Professor Yair Kless and Salvatore Accardo.

For his outstanding artistic and social activities, he was awarded the medal of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for Merit to Polish Culture. He has been nominated for the “Coryphaeus of Polish Music” award in the “Personality of the Year” category 2018 and the Norwid 2019 statuette.

Janusz Wawrowski plays a 1685 Antonio Stradivari violin, which was named Polonia in December 2018, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Poland’s independence. It is the first and so far only instrument of this class in the country’s post-war history.