Thiel Jaroslaw

Among Poland's leading historical-performance specialists, cellist and conductor Jarosław Thiel is the artistic director of the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra. He is also an important educator. Thiel began his career as a student of the modern cello, attending music academies in Poznań and Łódź. At first, he had no interest in historical performance and would take the negative side in debates over its appropriateness, but in Poznán, he met Baroque oboist Marek Niewiedział and the Polish early music pioneers Ewa and Aureliusz Goliński and was impressed by their dedication to their craft. Still unconvinced, he took another step when he was tasked with organizing a string quartet for his sister's wedding. He contacted the Golińskis so that he might thereby line up two violinists with a single call, and during a rehearsal, he put gut strings on his cello to harmonize more closely with their sound. Fascinated, he undertook studies in Baroque cello playing and began to use a Baroque bow. Thiel went on for further studies at Berlin's University of the Arts, studying with Phoebe Carrai and Markus Möllenbeck. He earned a diploma with honors. For several years, Thiel was first cellist with the Dresden Baroque Orchestra. In 2006, he became the artistic director of the new Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, part of Poland's National Music Forum (NFM). At the time, historically oriented performance was a comparative rarity in Poland, but Thiel has done much to build it as a professor of historical cello at the I.J. Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznán. In 2012, Thiel made his recording debut as a cellist, backing soprano Olga Pasichnyk on Bella mia fiamma..., an album of Mozart arias. He recorded an album of Beethoven works for cello and piano with fortepianist Katarzyna Drogosz in 2017. That year, Thiel took on the position of deputy program director at the National Forum of Music. He has also performed as a cellist with other Baroque groups in Poland and abroad. For the NFM's own label, he played on a world premiere recordings of violin sonatas by Carl Höckh. In 2022, Thiel returned to the recording studio, leading the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra and Ensemble Polyharmonique on the recording Dresden Vespers, released on the Accent label.
© James Manheim /TiVo