Polish conductor Marzena Diakun has been appointed the new chief conductor of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz. Current chief conductor Benjamin Schwartz departs at the end of the 2024–25 season.
The 2012 winner of the Silver Baton at Grzegorz Fitelberg International Competition, Katowice, Diakun has since gone on to work with Komische Oper Berlin, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, among others. She was artistic director and chief conductor of the Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid, from 2020 to 2024.
Minister of Culture Katharina Binz commented: “Marzena Diakun is one of the most exciting conductors of her generation. As artistic director and chief conductor of the Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid, she has brought their musical interpretations to international attention. In the more than 370-year history of the orchestra in Koblenz, for a woman to take on the task of chief conductor for the first time makes me particularly happy.”
Diakun herself commented: “My first concert with the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie was on the birthday of Clara Schumann. We, of course, also played Robert Schumann. Then, we met again to perform their friend Brahms, in the final selection for this position. A principal conductor position is about making music with friends, in a family, about synergy, about growing together from where we leave off at the end of each week, and about pushing the horizon of our expectations of ourselves as musicians and as people.
“I am really very happy and very grateful for the trust that this wonderful orchestra and its management have placed in me. I’m really looking forward to this new era in Koblenz.”
Bachtrack spoke to Diakun in 2023, exploring her work with Polish orchestras and the Philharmonique de Radio France, where she conducted alongside Mikko Frank, Pascal Rophé and Bruno Mantovani. Their live recreation of Pierre Henry’s La Dixième Symphonie, Hommage à Beethoven, with three conductors, jumbles up parts of Beethoven’s nine symphonies in a ten-movement, hour-long collage.
A former mentee of Pierre Boulez at Lucerne, Diakun is a frequent conductor of contemporary music, working with both Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris and Asko-Schönberg chamber orchestra in Amsterdam. In 2016, she conducted the Polish premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s opera Lost Highway.
This season Diakun conducts with soloists including pianist Marc-André Hamelin with the Atlanta Symphony, and violinist Tianwa Yang with the Rheinische Philharmonie. Diakun’s recordings appear on IBS Classical, Anaklasis and Alpha record labels.
