Tomasz Golka, Music Director
"There were beautiful and exciting things in the playing: Golka displayed an understanding of the complementary roles of momentum and elasticity in [Richard] Strauss’s music," writes Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe. "Babbitt’s From the Psalter is as complicated and striking in meter, language, and emotional directness as the texts. The string orchestra under Golka played it confidently, and Golka achieved a Mozartian transparency."
Since winning 1st Prize at the 2003 Eduardo Mata International Conducting Competition, conductor Tomasz Golka has appeared with orchestras in the Americas and Europe to great critical acclaim.
Since the 2007-08 season Golka is Music Director of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, which has seen a resurgence of growth and vitality under his direction. He also begins his tenure as Music Director of the Riverside County Philharmonic in the 2010-11 season. The 2009-10 season included appearances as guest conductor with Warsaw Philharmonic, Fort Worth Symphony, and River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, among others.
A composer himself, Golka, in addition to conducting his own works, regularly commissions and premieres works of other living composers. With the Lubbock Symphony, he premiered the Symphony of Mathew Fuerst, a work written especially for that orchestra during his inaugural season there as Music Director.
Beginning with the 2010-11 season he has created the position of composer-in-residence with the Lubbock Symphony, a position to be held during the first year by composer Shafer Mahoney.
Golka has also brought works by Lutosławski, Ligeti, Webern, Dutilleux, Bruckner, and the rarely-heard early 20th century tone poems of Karlowicz for the first time to Lubbock audiences, including the American Premiere of the composer's final completed work A Sorrowful Tale.
In the US, Golka has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Seattle, Charleston, Louisville, Buffalo, and Spoleto Festival USA.
He has toured Mexico several times, appearing with virtually all of the country's top orchestras, including those of UNAM, Xalapa, Queretaro, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, and Yucatan.
He made his European debut conducting Sinfonia Varsovia in Warsaw’s National Symphony Hall in 2004.
He has served as Cover Conductor for the Cleveland Orchestra as well as the Houston, Dallas, and New Jersey symphony orchestras and has appeared with such renowned soloists as Susan Graham, Alisa Weilerstein, and regularly appears with his pianist-brother Adam Golka.
As a conducting fellow at the 2006 Tanglewood Music Festival, he worked with James Levine, shared the podium with Bernard Haitink, and conducted a historic performance of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale with legendary composers Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and John Harbison as narrators.
Golka was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1975, and currently resides in Berlin, Germany.
As an operatic conductor, his recent credits include Die Fledermaus and Madama Butterfly which he conducted on tour throughout Chile.
Past positions held by Golka include Music Director of the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra (2008-10), Ball State Symphony Orchestra and Opera and the Bakersfield Youth Symphony (2003-04), Founder and Artistic Director of the Chamber Music at All Saints (2000-02) and the Bloomington Chamber Orchestra (1998-99), and as a violinist, Concertmaster of Spoleto USA Festival Orchestra and the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra (1999-2000).
Golka studied conducting with David Effron at Indiana University and Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar at the Peabody Conservatory. He also holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Rice University. His violin teachers were Sergiu Luca, Kenneth Goldsmith, Marina Yashvili, and Tadeusz Wronski. He was a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in 2002 and has conducted in Master Classes for such distinguished conductors as Yuri Temirkanov and David Zinman.
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