Ryszard Cieśla

A graduate of the Warsaw Academy of Music where he studied under Roman Węgrzyn. He also studied under Kazimierz Pustelak and was a scholarship student at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna. After graduation he joined Warsaw Opera and during 1983-87 also sang with the Bornus Consort Ensemble of early music. He won 2nd Prize, as well as a Special Award for his performance of Dutch song at the International vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (1986). He has sung baritone parts in Bizet’s Carmen, Gounod’s Faust, Mozart’s Magic Flute and Marriage of Figaro, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Turandot, Verdi’s Masked Ball and Rigoletto and Penderecki’s Paradise Lost. In 1983 he joined the Romuald Traugutt Philharmonic as soloist, later becoming the ensemble’s acting music director and in 2000, it’s artistic director, where he mounted many musical events. He also has an extensive concert repertoire, has given song recitals and participated in cantata and oratorio performances. For Polish Radio he has made archive recordings of songs by Mahler, Moniuszko, Paderewski, Ravel, Schubert, Schumann, Strausss and Szymanowski. For ‘Studio Hard Record’ he has recorded with the Traugutt Philharmonic songs from the period of Poland’s restoration of independence. He is also a teacher, and was an assistant to Kazimierz Pustelak in vocal studies, becoming an independent tutor in 1997.