TOMASZ GOLKA
Since winning 1st Prize at the 2003 Eduardo Mata International Conducting Competition, conductor and composer Tomasz Golka has appeared with Warsaw Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, Baden-Baden Philharmonic, as well as the symphony orchestras of Fort Worth, Seattle, Louisville, Buffalo, and Spoleto Festival USA. In Mexico he has appeared with virtually all of the country’s top orchestras, including UNAM, Xalapa, Queretaro, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, and Yucatán. He has appeared with soloists Susan Graham, Alisa Weilerstein, Gary Hoffman, Miriam Fried, Inon Barnatan, and his pianist-brother Adam Golka.
Golka is an ardent supporter of living composers. From 2014 to 2015, Golka was Chief Conductor of Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia, with whom he gave several world premieres and the Colombian Premiere of Thomas Adès's Asyla as well as several world premieres by Colombian composers. Since 2010 he is Music Director of Riverside Philharmonic, a virtuoso orchestra comprising of the top Hollywood studio musicians. From 2007 to 2012 he was Music Director of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, with whom he gave seven world premieres and the American premiere of Karłowicz’s 1909 tone poem A Sorrowful Tale.
Golka has served as Cover Conductor for Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra. At the 2006 Tanglewood Music Festival, Golka conducted a historic performance of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale with composers Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and John Harbison as narrators – a recording that is now available for sale through the Boston Symphony’s website bso.org. He has also recorded Ciranda das sete notas by Heitor Villa-Lobos for Melo Records.
Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1975, Golka’s family emigrated to Mexico in 1980 and to the United States in 1982. His conducting teachers were David Effron at Indiana University and Gustav Meier at the Peabody Conservatory. He also holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in violin from Rice University, where his teachers were Sergiu Luca and Kenneth Goldsmith.
PAWEL RYCHWICKI
Pawel Rychwicki was born in Warsaw, Poland on November 13, 1952. In 1972 he went to New York City to study at the Manhattan School of Music and then in 1976 to Indiana University, where he was a violin student of Tadeusz Wronski. In 1978 he became the Concertmaster of the Caracas Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela, where he also performed with his string quartet. In 1982 his career as a violinist came to a tragic end when he was involved in a tragic car accident that severed his left arm.
He then moved to Los Angeles, California to study composition, and he began pursuing a career in film music. He wrote music for many commercials and films. In 1990 he moved to Houston, Texas to pursue a doctorate in composition, studying with Arthur Gottschalk at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music.
In 1986 he was diagnosed with colitis. He died on April 10, 1997 at the age of 44.
COMPOSERS
Composer David Fick was born Tacoma, Washington in 1970 and began his musical studies on the piano and viola. He is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Southern California, where he earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in music composition. His principal teachers were Frank Ticheli and Stephen Hartke.
From 1997 through 2009, Mr. Fick was a lecturer for the department of music theory and composition at USC. He has also taught at UCLA and California Lutheran University. Prior to becoming a college instructor, he was a program annotator for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Fick has received commissions from the Riverside County Philharmonic, Vicente Chamber Orchestra, American Youth Symphony, Tacoma Youth Symphony and SOLI Chamber Ensemble. He was Composer-in-residence with the Wild Ginger Philharmonic from 1998 through 2001, during which time the orchestra premiered four of his symphonic works.
His holiday album A Truly Classic Christmas continues to remain a best-seller in its category and has been aired hundreds of times by radio stations across the US, Europe, and Asia.
DAVID FICK
