as a violinist
as a conductor
2 concerts
26th, 30rd March
Artistic Director
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Artistic Director
Kai Bumann
Kai Bumann has been holding the post of the artistic director of the Polish Baltic Frédéric Chopin Philharmonic since September 2008 He is a German conductor but has got close bonds with Polish music scene.
Kai Bumann was born in Berlin and graduated from Berlin Hochschule der Künste. From 1986 to 1992, he regularly cooperated as a conductor with numerous opera theatres in Germany where he also directed musical premieres of such operas as D. Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, R. Strauss’s “Salome” and A. Berg’s “Lulu” and many other ones ranging from W. A. Mozart to G. Verdi.
In 1994, he won a second prize at the International Conductor Contest in Geneva and started his cooperation with the most important music centres in Poland, which he has been continuing until the present day. In 1996, Bumann became the first guest conductor of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic in Gdańsk (a series of Beethoven’s music concerts, K. Penderecki’s “St. Luke Passion”) and also the first conductor of the Staatstheater in Wiesbaden where he led such operas as W. A. Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”, G. Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”, G. Puccini’s “Tosca” and G. Verdi’s “Aida”.
In 1997, he took the position of artistic director in the Cracow Opera, becoming also its first conductor. Together with those opera members he presented premieres of W. A. Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” and “Don Giovanni”, G. Verdi’s “A Masked Ball” and K. Penderecki’s “The Black Mask”. In the same year, he became the first conductor of the Swiss Youth Symphony Orchestra. From 1998 to 2003 he regularly appeared on the stage of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Since the beginning of the 2004, he is a regular conductor of the Warsaw Chamber Opera. He started his cooperation with that theatre by preparing the musical premiere of G. Verdi’s “Falstaff” (2003). Together with that team he travelled to France, Spain and twice to Japan (2004, 2006). In February 2007, he debuted in the Grand Theatre - National Opera conducting W. A. Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”.
