Agnieszka Franków-Żelazny is one of the most recognised chorus masters in Poland and in Europe, a professor of music studies, an educator, a manager, and an arts administrator. She studied vocal performance and conducting at the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. She also obtained a degree in biology from the University of Wrocław and studied cultural management at the Kraków University of Economy.
She has 25 albums to her credit as well as over 80 individual and group prizes, including First Prize and two special prizes in the Polish National Choral Conducting Competition and First Prize in the Primus Inter Pares Lower Silesian Best Student of the Republic of Poland Contest, which she won still as a student. In recognition for her artistic and academic achievements she received the Decoration of Honour for Merit to Polish Culture (2008), Wrocław Music Award (2010), 2011 Person of the Year Award (decided by popular Internet vote), the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Iuvenes Wratislaviae Award (2012), Gloria Artis Medal for Merits to Culture (bronze in 2014, silver in 2022), and two Fryderyk Awards (2017, 2019). In 2018 the Choral Academy she programmed was nominated for the Koryfeusz Music Award (Poland).
In 2000 she founded and then led the Wrocław Medical University’s choir, Medici Cantantes. Over her four-year tenure, the ensemble won top prizes in choral competitions in Poland and abroad, becoming one of the best academic choirs in the country. Between 2006 and 2021 she was the artistic director of the Choir of the National Forum of Music, implementing her vision of a ‘choir of soloists’. She was the originator and the artistic director of a nationwide educational and artistic project called the Polish National Youth Choir, established in 2013. From 2015 to 2022 she served as the director for programming of the Choral Academy, a project set up to provide financial and substantive support to almost 300 children’s and youth choirs and their conductors by organising training, concerts, competitions, conferences, and publishing works of music and methodology handbooks. Between 2013 and 2016 she served as the curator of the Music Programme of the 2016 European Capital of Culture, helping to organise several hundred events in Wrocław.
Franków-Żelazny has performed the world premieres of a range of contemporary Polish works. She has taken to the stage at the Royal Albert Hall, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, the Paris Philharmonic and Salle Pleyel, London’s Barbican Centre, the Moscow International House of Music, Bozar Brussels, and other major European venues. She has prepared choirs for conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Paul McCreesh, Krzysztof Penderecki, Iván Fischer, Pascal Rophe, Lawrence Foster, Jacek Kaspszyk, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Andrzej Boreyko, Steven Layton, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Robert Reimer, Konrad Junghänel, Andreas Mustonen, Toñu Kaljuste, Giovanni Antonini, Adreas Spering, Carlo Rizzi, Dennis Russel Davies, and Charles Dutoit.
The conductor has appeared at festivals in Turkey, the US, Russia, Israel, the UK, Germany, Greece, Czechia, Croatia, France, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Brazil.
She worked with such ensembles as Gabrieli Consort, Schleswig-Holstein Festival Choir, Chor der Bamberger Symphoniker, NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, Sudeten Philharmonic Orchestra, Opole and Zielona Góra Philharmonic Orchestras, Cappella Gedanensis, Choir of the International Wratislavia Cantans Festival, Silesian Philharmonic Choir, Poznań Opera House Chorus, and the Polish National Opera Chorus.
A passionate educator, she teaches aspiring chorus masters and choir singers at the Academy of Music in Wrocław and as part of numerous master classes and workshop she leads across Europe. Moreover, she works as a vocal consultant and juror of choir, singing, and composition competitions. In September 2022 she took over as the general director of the Sudeten Philharmonic Hall in Wałbrzych.
