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The Polish baritone (and former tenor), Adam Szerszeń, graduated with distinction from the singing class of Michalina Growiec at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice (2002). He is a former grant-holder of the Minister of Culture and the Kołłątaj Foundation. His competition successes have included Second Prize in the Ludomir Różycki Singing Competition in Gliwice (1998) and Second Prize in the Łódź International Chamber Music Competition (2001).
From 1995 to 1998, Adam Szerszeń sang in the chorus of the Silesian Philharmonic, then from 1998 to 2002 he was a member of the Camerata Silesia Singing Ensemble (Director: Anna Szostak), with which he performed at home and abroad, taking part in the first performances of many works of contemporary music and recording four discs, including an album of Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki’s Completorium featuring Emma Kirkby (Musicon label). From 2002 to 2005, he was a soloist with the Silesian Opera, and in 2004 he made his debut at the Polish National Opera.
His repertoire contains baritone parts in many oratorio-cantata works, such as Johannes Brahms’ German Requiem, Haydn’s Stabat Mater and The Creation, Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, J.S. Bach’s Magnificat (BWV 243) and Ich habe genug (BWV 82), Franz Liszt’s Via Crucis and Puccini’s Missa di Gloria, as well as the song cycles Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder by Gustav Mahler, Vier ernste Gesänge by Johannes Brahms, 7 Gipsy Songs by Dvořák, 4 Love Sonnets by Tadeusz Baird, and Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and 3 Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé by Ravel. He has also performed operatic roles in many works, including Moniuszko’s The Haunted Manor and Halka, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, L.v. Beethoven’s Fidelio, Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s Aida, La traviata, Don Carlos and Un ballo in maschera, Puccini’s La bohème and W.A. Mozart’s Così fan tutte.
Adam Szerszeń has performed three times in the Warsaw Autumn festival, and also in the Gaude Mater festival in Częstochowa, Anima Mundi in Pisa, Stanisław Moniuszko Festival in Kudowa-Zdrój, European Opera Festival in Krynica, Bydgoszcz Opera Festival and Krystyna Jamroz International Music Festival in Busko-Zdrój. In 2011, he performed in the ‘Chopin and his Europe’ festival in Warsaw. He has performed with the leading Polish philharmonic orchestras and recorded for radio and television.
Since 2002, Adam Szerszeń has worked as a research and teaching assistant at the Academy of Music in Katowice, and since 2003 he has been a guest soloist at the Poznań Opera (Teatr Wielki). |
