Julia Kurzydlak – Assistant Conductor 2025–2027

In June 2024, Julia Kurzydlak took part in Paavo Järvi’s Conductors’ Academy at the Tonhalle in Zurich – and impressed not only our Music Director but also the audience in the hall. Following the final concert, she was awarded both the ‘Paavo Järvi Scholarship’ for his festival in Pärnu and the audience prize.

The 2025/26 season marked the start of a new chapter for her in Zurich, which will continue into 2026/27: As Paavo Järvi’s assistant conductor, Julia Kurzydlak accompanies him on all his projects with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. She sits in on rehearsals, checks the sound balance, notes technical and interpretative details, and compares what she hears with the score. And she conducts herself too: in the family concerts ‘Von wilden und gezähmten Tönen’ and ‘Dornröschen’, she leads the orchestra, as she does at the closing concerts of the ‘Kunterwunderbunt’ series.

Julia Kurzydlak is a student at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. She completed her bachelor’s degree under Tomasz Bugaj and her master’s degree under Rafał Janiak. She has taken part in masterclasses, including one with Marin Alsop at the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. She has also taken and takes still part in major international competitions – including the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition (London Symphony Orchestra) and the Mahler Conducting Competition (Bamberg Symphony Orchestra).

Her great passion is contemporary music. She has premiered numerous works by young composers. In 2022, she made her debut at the Warsaw Autumn festival. During the 2024/2025 season, she took part in the ‘Akademia Pro’ master’s programme run by the Hashtag Ensemble. She also conducted performances of ‘Mahagonny.Afterparty’, with music by Kurt Weill and Kasia Głowicka, at Teatr Studio as second conductor and assistant to Lilianna Krych.

As an assistant conductor, she has worked with artists including Andrzej Boreyko, Rafał Janiak, Yaroslaw Shemet, Lilianna Krych and Paweł Przytocki. In the 2026/27 season, alongside her work in Zurich, she will serve as resident conductor at the Łódź Opera and as assistant conductor with the Warsaw Philharmonic.

Read more about the collaboration between Paavo Järvi and Julia Kurzydlak here.