The Bokun/Kosciuszko Clarinet and Guitar Duo is a musical ensemble whose aspiration is to rediscover the greatest masterpieces of chamber music from Schubert, through 20th-century French composers to a contemporary chamber and solo music repertoire. Beside chamber music concerts, the Duo also performs with orchestras, playing the Double Concerto by Astor Piazzolla in an arrangement for clarinet, guitar and strings.
JAN JAKUB BOKUN – clarinet
Polish clarinetist and conductor. Graduated summa cum laude from Karol Lipinski Music Academy in Wroclaw and obtained further postgraduate training with Guy Dangain at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. He studied conducting at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles with Larry Livingston and John Barnett. Bokun was awarded a grant by the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen where he studied with David Zinman, Jorma Panula and David Robertson. In 2012, he obtained his post-doctoral from Karol Lipinski Academy of Music in Wroclaw. He had attended master courses with eminent artists including Sergiu Celibidache, Michael Stern, Jerzy Salwarowski, Philippe Cuper, Guy Deplus, Walter Boeykens, Michael Collins, Béla Kovács, James Levine and Kurt Masur.
Jan Jakub Bokun was a winner of competitions in Wroclaw, Wloszakowice, Bialystok, Enschede and Mt. Pleasant. He received the Foundation for Polish Culture Award, and scholarships from the Minister of Culture and Art, the Jan Adolf Górecki Scholarship, and the French Government. He has performed extensively in Europe, USA, United Arab Emirates, and Southeast Asia. He represented Poland at the World Clarinet Congress Clarinetfest (in Ostend, Stockholm, Tokyo, Lincoln and Assisi). In 1999, Krystian Zimerman invited him to perform with the Polish Festival Orchestra in Salle Pleyel in Paris, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Carnegie Hall in New York and to record for the Deutsche Grammophon. As a soloist and conductor he has regularly performed with distinguished orchestras in Poland and the Czech Republic. As a clarinetist and conductor he recorded 11 albums. His album, Duo Guitarinet, was nominated for the award Fryderyk 2000. His latest album, A la carte, was recorded with guitarist Jakub Kosciuszko and released in 2015. J.J.Bokun also recorded for the Polish Radio and Television, the International Clarinet Association, the record company Koch Classics and Dux. In 2005, he founded his own record label JBRecords.
Jan Jakub Bokun is a highly sought-after teacher, who has conducted numerous courses and master classes at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, in Sofia, Belgrade, Prague, Paris, Brno, Lubljana, Mexico, Beijing, Tokyo and Avila, Spain. He is currently in the faculty of the Karol Lipinski Academy of Music in Wroclaw. Jan Jakub Bokun is the president of the Polish branch of the International Clarinet Association, originator and art director of the Clarimania festival, and founder and conductor of the chamber orchestra Inter>CAMERATA. He is an endorser for the companies – Yamaha, D’Addario and BG
JAKUB KOSCIUSZKO – guitar
Perfection, excellent, amazing, sensitive virtuoso – these all terms come from the music critics` articles concerning Jakub Kosciuszko. He has performed concerts in most of European countries and Japan, including such places as Tokyo Yamaha Ginza Concert Hall, Lutoslawski Concert Hall in Warsaw and the Berliner Philharmonie. He has played as a soloist with the philharmonic orchestras of Szczecin, Zielona Gora, Lomza, Radom, Kielce and AUKSO chamber orchestra. In 2010 he released a world premiere recording with works of Marek Pasieczny, i.a. with the Threnody of the Victims of Belzec, dedicated to Kosciuszko. The debut album was highly acclaimed by the critics in Europe and USA. In 2012 he recorded a classical Guitar Recital with works by Bach, Tansman, Piazzolla, Jarrett and Metheny. The third solo album, Guitar sounds jazzy, contains music inspired by jazz and world music.
Jakub Kosciuszko started to learn to play the guitar at the age of 8. At the age of 16 his biography was placed in the Lexicon of Polish Guitarists. In 2004 he graduated with honors from the Music School in Szczecin, where he was a pupil of Piotr Palac. In 2009 he graduated with honors from the classes of Piotr Zaleski at the Karol Lipinski Academy of Music in Wroclaw and maestro Zoran Dukic at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. In 2010 he received a Diploma di Merito and a scholarship from maestro Oscar Ghiglia during Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Since 2016 Jakub Kosciuszko holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Academy of Music in Wroclaw. He regularly teaches guitar at international music courses, masterclasses and workshops. He is a laureate of several international guitar competitions, he participated in master classes of such great guitarists as: Abel Carlevaro, Oscar Ghiglia, Roberto Aussel, Pavel Steidl, Scott Tennant.
Jakub Kosciuszko plays a Boguslaw Teryks guitar Nada Brahma Op. 157 stringed with D`Addario strings and uses DPA microphones.
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