Spotlight on... Marta Gardolińska

© Bart Barczyk

Marta Gardolińska began as the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s Leverhulme Young Conductor in Association in September last year, a trainee role which ordinarily involves assisting conductors in rehearsal and taking on some school and family concerts. Barely six weeks later, she was conducting Rachmaninov’s immense Second Symphony and the Bruch Violin Concerto in a main stage concert, having stepped in at short notice for an indisposed Ben Gernon. Needless to say, it went well.

Marta took piano and flute when she was growing up in Poland, but after trying her hand at choral conducting, by the age of 20 she was already focusing on the baton, with studies at the Frédéric Chopin Music University in Warsaw, followed by the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

You’ve described yourself as a chamber musician with a baton. Is that a clue to your conducting philosophy?

The ideal way of music making for a lot of people is chamber music because everyone is equally important, which creates a sort of energy that you can’t get anywhere else. With a bigger group you need someone organising it, the conductor, but I think it’s important for a conductor to create space for the musicians to give as much as they can.

You did a postgraduate degree in Music Physiology – does that inform your approach in any way?

As a kid I was actually doing more sport than music, and through that I had some injuries, did some physiotherapy, and realised what self-care is. But I also noticed how musicians weren’t thinking about it at all.

Being a professional musician offers similar challenges to being a professional sportsperson, with huge physical strain in very particular areas of the body of instrumentalists, and too often they just get used to living with chronic pain.

Whenever I get a chance to influence an institution on that level, I will certainly try to make sure that options are available for musicians to seek help or advice early enough, when it’s still prevention.

You’re passionate about the music of your homeland. Are there any composers you feel should be better known?

Yes, Polish orchestral music is a little bit of a mission for me! In the 20th century there is Grażyna Bacewicz for instance [whose works include seven violin concertos and four symphonies]. Earlier there is Szymanowski who is already widely performed of course, and I believe it will grow, but there are also fantastic symphonic works from the 19thcentury that are little known, even in Poland. Mieczysław Karłowicz, Józef Wieniawski [brother of the violinist Henryk], Zygmunt Noskowski, Józef Dobrzyńsk… many names and lots of interesting and beautiful music. I would love to help broaden the standard repertoire by rediscovering pieces and doing them justice through research and finding proper performance practice for them.

It is important for me to contribute both to popularising Polish culture abroad and help musical culture in Poland grow and flourish – and of course I hope I will have a chance of to make more music there in the future.

This is an extract from an interview by Kimon Daltas, originally published online. Read the full interview at askonasholt.com/marta-gardolinska