Agata Zając - Conductor
Sudeten Philharmonic Orchestra, Poland
“Conducted by Agata Zając - Elizabeth Maconchy’s Symphony for double string orchestra made a wonderful contrast. Driven by fierce Bartókian motor rhythms in the first movement and the playful scherzo while uncovering deeper, darker currents in the slow movement and final passacaglia, its almost total neglect is hard to explain.”
Agata Zając is one of the most outstanding young Polish symphonic and opera conductors. She started her musical career as a violinist, and completed her conducting studies at the Poznań Academy of Music in Poland. For the 2022/23 season, Agata was the Mills Williams Junior Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.
Zając is former Resident Conductor of the Toruń Symphony Orchestra (2020/21) and Sudeten Philharmonic Orchestra (2021/22) in Poland. She has already worked with many international orchestras, including the BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, Britten Sinfonia, Grazer Philharmoniker, Orchestre national de Metz, Orchestre de Picardie, Malmö Opera, Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Athens Philharmonia, NOSPR in Katowice, Szczecin Philharmonic, Poznań Philharmonic, Opole Philharmonic and Zielona Góra Philharmonic. From 2018 to 2019, she was Assistant Conductor at Warsaw Chamber Opera, where she worked on the premieres of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Idomeneo, and Stanislaw Moniuszko's Halka.
“Conducting Fellow Agata Zając, 28, is a Polish symphonic and opera conductor, who has a considerable amount of experience behind her and has already been appointed assistant conductor to the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra for the coming season. She led a superb performance of Rachmaninoff’s “Isle of the Dead,” a very beautiful “tone poem” from 1909, when Rachmaninoff was living in Dresden and before he moved permanently to the United States. The piece is rarely performed, but it is exquisitely written for color and atmosphere. (…) The conductor and the orchestra were as one, from the opening swaying irregular rhythms to the enormous climaxes. The brass and percussion sections together created powerful cascades of balanced sound without blaring. It would be hard to imagine a more persuasive or compelling reading.”
Agata Zając has participated in many conducting masterclasses, and was mentored by prominent teachers such as Paavo Järvi, Jorma Panula, Johannes Schlaefli, Mark Heron, Antony Hermus, Marin Alsop and Peter Eötvös. She spent Summer 2023 at the Tanglewood Music Festival as a Conducting Fellow working under the guidance of Andris Nelsons, Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Agata was also a student of the Tonhalle Conductors’ Academy 2022/23, Gstaad Conducting Academy 2021 and NOSPR Conducting Academy 2021.
Zając has participated in many international competitions – she was awarded 2nd Prize and Audience Vote at the 2023 Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition; received special distinctions at the Malta International Conducting Masterclass and Competition (2018) and the International Conducting Competition Città di Brescia (2021); and she reached the semi-finals of the 2023 Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, where she rehearsed with the London Symphony Orchestra. In 2018, Agata was awarded a scholarship by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in Poland.
Agata Zając is currently Assistant Conductor to Ludovic Morlot at the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. Highlights in 2024 and 2024/25 include concerts with the Hallé and with the National Youth Orchestra at the brand new Tung Auditorium in Liverpool.
For enquiries contact: andrew@hennesseybrownmusic.com