MARTA MAGDALENA LELEK
violin

Mar­ta Mag­dale­na Lelek is rec­og­nized as one of the best Pol­ish con­cert vi­o­lin­ists. De­scribed by the re­view­ers as ‘promi­nent’, ‘s­tun­ning lis­ten­ers with breath­tak­ing tech­nique’, ‘in­ten­sive’, ‘thrilling the au­di­ence with the most beau­ti­ful sound’.

At the age of 9 she be­gan her mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion un­der pro­fes­sor Paweł Puczek (Head of the String De­part­ment at the Acade­my of Mu­sic in Ka­tow­ice). Lat­er, she con­tin­ued her stud­ies un­der pro­fes­sor An­toni Co­fa­lik and dur­ing that time she re­ceived many prizes and awards. In 1999 she was in­vit­ed to com­mence her high­er ed­u­ca­tion at the pres­ti­gious “Guild­hall School of Mu­sic & Dra­ma” in Lon­don, in pro­fes­sor Krzysztof Śmi­etana’s vi­o­lin class. In 2003 she was award­ed with the Bach­e­lor’s De­gree (Honours) and two years lat­er – with the Mas­ter’s De­gree with Dis­tinc­tion in Per­for­mance. Be­ing a stu­dent, she had a pos­si­bil­i­ty to per­fect her skills un­der Sir Col­in Davis, Mae­stro Jor­di Savall, the “­Takacs Quar­tet”, Wan­da Wiłkomirs­ka, Jose Luis Gar­cia Asen­cio, and many more.

Mar­ta Mag­dale­na Lelek per­forms ex­ten­sive­ly as a soloist with sym­pho­ny and cham­ber or­ches­tras (often na­tion­al) in Eu­rope (Poland, Italy, Al­ba­nia, France, Ukraine, Rus­sia, Spain, Por­tu­gal, Czech Re­pub­lic), Asia, Amer­i­ca, South Amer­i­ca, Aus­tralia. She per­formed be­tween oth­ers with the OSEM in Mex­i­co (Orques­tra Sin­fon­i­ca Es­ta­do Mex­i­co), UANL in Mex­i­co, Na­tion­al Thai­land Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra in Bangkok, Na­tion­al Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra of Ukraine in Kyiv, Na­tion­al Ra­dio and TV Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra of Al­ba­nia in Tirana, Cra­cow Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra.

Be­ing a soloist, Mar­ta Mag­dale­na Lelek co­op­er­ates with such out­stand­ing con­duc­tors as mae­stro Jacek Kasp­szyk, Tadeusz Wo­j­ciechows­ki, Paweł Przy­toc­ki, Michał Dworzyńs­ki, Charles Olivier­i-­Munroe, Gud­ni Emils­son, Claude Vil­laret, Volodymir Sirenko, Ho­bart Ear­le, Łukasz Borow­icz, Wo­j­ciech Mich­niews­ki, Pe­ter Dąbrows­ki, Miguel Salmon del Real, Michał Nes­terow­icz, Marcin Nałęcz-Niesiołows­ki, Jerzy Sal­warows­ki, Igor Ver­bit­sky.

Mar­ta Mag­dale­na Lelek's per­for­mances are char­ac­ter­ized by in­tro­duc­tion of in­ter­est­ing, rarely per­formed, of­ten con­tem­po­rary com­po­si­tions. Her reper­toire in­cludes vi­o­lin con­cer­tos by Ben­jamin Brit­ten, William Wal­ton, Vaugh­an Williams, Al­ban Berg (“­To the Mem­o­ry of an An­gel”), Igor Stravin­sky, Samuel Bar­ber, Fer­ru­cio Bu­soni, Castel­n­uovo-T­edesco, Carl Nielsen, Yev­gen Stankovych no.2, An­drzej Panufnik, David Tu­ki­ci. Also – writ­ten for her and ded­i­cat­ed to her vi­o­lin con­cer­to no.2 by Karl Fior­i­ni (the world pre­miere of that piece took place in May 2012 in Bangkok with the Na­tion­al Thai­land Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra un­der the ba­ton of mae­stro Gud­ni Emils­son). In 2012 Mar­ta Lelek record­ed the CD with Karl Fior­ini’s 2nd vi­o­lin con­cer­to (pub­lished by „­Di­vine Art” Nax­os dis­tri­bu­tion).

Mar­ta's near­est con­cert plans in­clude con­certs with Wuhan Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra in Chi­na, Na­tion­al Ra­dio and TV Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra of Al­ba­nia in Tirana, in Por­tu­gal – with Orques­ta Sin­fon­i­ca di Gaia, Spain — with Barcelona Mod­ern Pro­ject (Reus), Italy – with Or­ches­tra Sin­fon­i­ca di Gros­se­to, Orques­tra Sin­fon­i­ca di San­re­mo, Bari Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra, Orques­tra Sin­fon­i­ca di Fon­di, „­Corel­li Cham­ber En­sam­ble” in Mex­i­co – with UANL, Mon­ter­rey Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra, Coahuila Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, Orques­tra da Ca­ma­ra Teatro des Bel­las Artes in Mex­i­co City, Mi­choa­can Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, Orques­tra de Ca­ma­ra de More­los, in Thai­land – with Na­tion­al Thai­land Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra in Bangkok, Ukraine – with Odessa Phil­har­mon­ic, Rus­sia – with the Voronezh Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra, France.

Solo con­cert plans in Poland in­clude per­for­mances with Sym­phon­ic Or­ches­tras from Poz­nań, Szczecin, Cra­cow, Ka­tow­ice, Ol­sz­tyn, Rzeszów, By­d­goszcz, Opole, Kielce, Wałbrzych, Kalisz, Częs­to­chowa, Zabrze and many oth­ers.

Mar­ta Mag­dale­na Lelek re­ceived a schol­ar­ship of the Pol­ish Min­istry of Art and Na­tion­al Her­itage, a schol­ar­ship of the Foun­da­tion of Pol­ish Cul­ture, a schol­ar­ship of the Cor­po­ra­tion of Lon­don, the Myra Hess Trust (Lon­don), the Wor­ship­ful Com­pa­ny of Mu­si­cians (Lon­don) and the Crip­ple­gate Foun­da­tion (Lon­don).

Mar­ta Mag­dale­na Lelek uses a Hun­gar­i­an vi­o­lin (Janos Spiegel – Bu­dapest 1926).

Press reviews:

"..­Mar­ta Lelek was thanked by the au­di­ence with a stand­ing ova­tion, for the most beau­ti­ful per­for­mance of the Jean Sibelius vi­o­lin con­cer­to in d-mi­nor. Ste­fan Fraas, Ger­man Mae­stro who in that con­cert led the or­ches­tra, joined the ap­plause..."

"...Mar­ta Lelek, stu­dent and the schol­ar­ship win­ner of the pres­ti­gious Mu­sic Acade­my in Lon­don, charmed the au­di­ence with her ex­cel­lent tech­nique, va­ri­ety of tone, spe­cif­ic, fem­i­nine grace and sen­si­tiv­i­ty which suit­ed per­fect­ly to the cli­mate of the “North­ern”” cold­ly-­pas­sion­ate mu­sic of the Finnish com­poser- Sibelius. The Or­ches­tra per­fect­ly matched her fem­i­nine in­ter­pre­ta­tion. Pre­ci­sion and Ger­man “ord­nung”” of Mae­stro Fraas mag­nif­i­cent­ly har­mo­nized with it..."

"...Few min­utes lat­er, Mar­ta Mag­dale­na Lelek ap­peared on the stage. One of the best Pol­ish vi­o­lin­ist of young gen­er­a­tion. While per­form­ing An­drzej Panufnik vi­o­lin con­cer­to for the vi­o­lin and the string or­ches­tra Ru­ba­to, Ada­gio, Vi­vace)) she played it just as the com­pos­er would wish it to be played. She showed to the au­di­ence her sen­si­tiv­i­ty and grace, en­er­gy and mu­si­cal­i­ty dis­play­ing at the same time her un­usu­al tech­nique. In the sec­ond part of the evening, the pub­lic could hear an ex­cel­lent per­for­mance of the Samuel Bar­ber vi­o­lin con­cer­to (per­formed again by M.M.Lelek)..."

"...The soloist (M.M.Lelek)) with her char­ac­ter­is­tic grace and tech­ni­cal fi­nesse, step by step re­vealed all the beau­ty of the bristling with dif­fi­cul­ties com­po­si­tion..’’ (W. Wal­ton vi­o­lin con­cer­to)