Wiktor Kociuabn started his international career as an assistant to Heinz Holliger on the production of his opera Schneewittchen at the Basel Theater (direction: Achim Freyer, 2014). He then made his debut at the 2014 Lucerne Festival with the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra (Bernd Alois Zimmermann Sinfonie in einem Satz). In 2015 and 2016 he successfully performed both as an opera and concert conductor with the Rzeszów Philharmonic Orchestra, the Polish Orchestra Sinfonia Iuventus, the Orchestra of the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic in Bialystok, the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Polish National Radio Orchestra of Katowice, with a repertoire spanning Viennese classical composers and world premieres of new works.
In June 2016 the first of dark matter(s) concerts was held, featuring the Polish Orchestra Sinfonia Iuventus. Devised by Mr Kociuban, the series aims to present major orchestral works of the 20th and 21st centuries. Another concert of the series, titled the nature of sound, featured pieces by Krzysztof Penderecki, György Ligeti, Giacinto Scelsi, and Georg Friedrich Haas, including the latter’s Natures mortes, which was given its Polish debut on the occasion. In conjunction with the event, the composers’ video profiles and a documentary film were released. In 2017 more concerts are planned, featuring the music of Polish composers such as Witold Lutosławski, Paweł Mykietyn, and Piotr Peszat.
Also in 2016, Mr Kociuban founded Delirium-Edition, a Warsaw-based international organisation for tomorrow’s art of which he is both director and conductor. The organisation collaborates with the most relevant young artists all over the world to promote current music.
Mr Kociuban has performed in concert halls around the globe and at such festivals as: the Schleswig Holstein Festival (works by Sofia Gubaidulina), the Schwetzinger Festspiele (on the invitation of Georg Friedrich Haas; works by Demetre Gamsachurdia and Arash Yazdani), the Davos Festival (Demetre Gamsachurdia, Matthias Renaud), and the Beethoven Festival (fragments of operas by Pietro Mascagni in Warsaw and a gala performance concluding the season of the Podkarpacie Philharmonic, Rzeszów, featuring arias and overtures by Mozart, Bellini, Puccini, and Verdi, with the participation of soloists of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera). He has performed alongside the likes of Sofia Gubaidulina, Misha Maisky, Ivan Monighetti, Marcus Weiss, Stephan Schmidt, Jürg Henneberger, and Mike Svoboda.
Wiktor Kociuban has collaborated with composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Sofia Gubaidulina, Peter Ablinger, Caspar Johannes Walter, Roland Moser, czy Krzysztof Penderecki. He has conducted the world premieres of works by Keitaro Takahashi, Lukas Langlotz, Ryan Beppel, Sandro Balzarini, and Demetre Gamsachurdia. Mr Kociuban regularly collaborates with the Georgian composer and pianist Demetre Gamsachurdia, who has dedicated his latest interactive opera Vikarë to him. The work is to be performed across Europe in 2017 under Kociuban’s direction (in Poland: Kraków Opera; Nowy Teatr, Warsaw; The Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music, Lusławice)
Mr Kociuban's discography includes Oracle’s Blast, a 2015 album co-produced by DUX and the Swiss Radio SRF2 Kultur and featuring five new works for cello and piano (Kociuban/Gamsachurdia), which was praised by international critics as a work 'of global importance'. What is more, in 2013 Mr Kociuban made the first ever recording of pieces for solo cello by Iannis Xenakis and Krzysztof Penderecki (in collaboration with the composer).
