Божена Харасимович-Хаас

Her repertoire includes the vocal works of Bach and Penderecki, alongside opera. Bozena Harasimowicz-Haas took her diploma with distinction from the Academy of Music in Gdańsk in 1989, in the class of Zofia Janukowicz-Pobłocka, and worked afterwards with Adele Stolte, Hanne-Lore Kuhse and Paul Esswood. She received second prize at the Dvořák competition in Karlovy Vary in 1986 and placed sixth at the Bach competition in Leipzig in 1988; she was a finalist at the ARD in Munich, the Tagliavini in Austria and the Mirjam Helin in Helsinki. Between 2000 and 2008 she was a soloist of the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw, where she made her debut in Don Carlos and sang Mozart; in concert she has worked with Kazimierz Kord, Helmuth Rilling and Krzysztof Penderecki, whose Seven Gates of Jerusalem she recorded — the disc received a Fryderyk for 2000, presented in March 2001. She began teaching solo singing at the Gdańsk academy in 1989, was made professor of musical arts in 2012, and received the bronze Gloria Artis medal in 2015. She sang the opera evening given by the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra on 20 March 2004. Antoni Wit is among the conductors she has worked with, and it was she who gave the European premiere of the Seven Gates of Jerusalem, in Warsaw in 1997.