Witold Rowicki, 75; Polish Conductor
Witold Rowicki, founder of the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and its conductor for nearly 25 years, has died, the official PAP news agency has reported. He was 75. The agency said Rowicki died last Sunday but did not give the cause of death or say where he died.
Rowicki had remained active as a guest conductor since leaving the National Philharmonic in 1977 and had conducted major orchestras on five continents.
He was born in Taganrog, now part of the Soviet Union, and graduated in 1938 from the Krakow Music Conservatory.
During the Nazi occupation, Rowicki was a member of the symphony orchestra in Krakow, playing violin and viola. After the war in 1945, under the new Communist regime, he became head of the music section of Polish Radio in Katowice in southern Poland.
There he founded the Polish Radio Orchestra, now the Grand Symphony Orchestra of Polish Radio and Television.
In 1950, Rowicki moved to Warsaw and founded the National Philharmonic in the capital that was rebuilding from World War II.
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