The Wrocław Baroque Orchestra is the resident ensemble of the Witold Lutosławski National Forum of Music in Wrocław. It is one of the few cultural institutions in Poland to maintain its own Baroque orchestra performing on historical instruments.
During each NFM concert season the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra (WBO) presents its own concert series. Its repertoire ranges from the early Baroque to the Romantic period and includes chamber music as well as large-scale oratorio works. Since the ensemble’s foundation the cellist Jarosław Thiel has served as Artistic Director of the WBO.
Today the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra is regarded as one of Poland’s leading ensembles specializing in historically informed performance. The orchestra’s artistic excellence and reputation are reflected in collaborations with some of the most distinguished figures on the international early music scene. WBO has performed under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe, Giovanni Antonini, Andrew Parrott, Masaaki Suzuki, Ivor Bolton, Martin Haselböck, Paul McCreesh and Laurence Cummings.
The orchestra regularly collaborates with renowned ensembles and soloists, including the Orchester Wiener Akademie, Bach Collegium Japan, Collegium Vocale Gent, Cantus Cölln, RIAS Kammerchor, Gli Angeli Genève as well as Ian Bostridge, Julia Lezhneva, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Shunske Sato, Vivica Genaux, Andreas Scholl, Aimi Kobayashi, Yulianna Avdeeva, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Giuliano Carmignola, Jakub Józef Orliński, Regula Mühlemann, Bruno de Sá and Renata Pokupić.
As a guest ensemble WBO performs at prestigious festivals and participates in television and radio productions as well as numerous recording projects.
In 2020, an album was released featuring Karol Kurpiński’s Elegy in C minor (world premiere recording), Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński’s Symphony No. 2 (first recording on historical instruments) and Stanisław Moniuszko’s overture The Fairy Tale, conducted by Jarosław Thiel. The album was nominated both for the International Classical Music Award 2022 and for the Fryderyk Award 2022 in the category “Album of the Year – Symphonic Music”.
In 2022 the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra released the albums Johann David Heinichen – Dresden Vespers (a world premiere recording for Accent, made together with Ensemble Polyharmonique) and Kings in the North with baritone Tomáš Král. Both productions received several nominations for the OPUS Klassik awards.
In 2024, the orchestra released its most recent album, Mille Affetti, featuring soprano Bruno de Sá on the Erato/Warner Classics label.
