Award-winning conductor Marzena Diakun came to international acclaim in Paris, during the 2015/16 season, after several concerts with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, an orchestra she continues to collaborate with on a regular basis. From September 2021 she will act as Artistic Director and Principal Chief Conductor of the Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid (ORCAM).

Recent and future engagements include Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Metz, Orchestre National du Capitol de Toulouse, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Orchestre Pasdeloup, National Warsaw Philharmonic, Sinfonia    Varsovia,  Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, Hamburger Philharmoniker, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie and Residentie Orkest the Hague. She will also intensify her relationship with the orchestra of the Toulon Opera, as its Principal Symphonic Conductor.

Diakun is a dedicated supporter of contemporary music and premieres numerous works. In 2016, she gave the Polish premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s opera Lost Highway, as a part of the New Horizons Festival in Wrocław (Breslau). Her release of ‘Polish Heroines’ on PWM, a recording dedicated to Polish women composers followed upon the 10th Symphony by Pierre Henry, on ALPHA.

She finished with distinction the conducting class under Mieczysław Gawronski at the Karol Lipinski Academy of Music in Wroclaw, followed by postgraduate studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, in Uros Lajovic’s class, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Cracow Academy of Music. Her mentors were conductors Howard Griffiths, Colin Metters, Kurt Masur, Andrey Boreyko, and Pierre Boulez. She is currently herself a conducting professor at the Karol Lipinski Academy of Music in Wroclaw. Her prizes and awards include second prize at the prestigious 59th Prague Spring Competition for Conductors in the Czech Republic and the Silver Baton at the 9th Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors in Poland (2012). In 2015, Diakun was a recipient of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Conducting Fellowship at Tanglewood Music Festival and won the Marin Alsop’s Taki Concordia Fellowship. In her home-country, Poland, she has received numerous awards.