Karol Mossakowski

The newly appointed titular organist at Saint-Sulpice Church in Paris France, Karol Mossakowski is renowned for both his interpretation and improvisation skills. He was awarded First Prizes at the International Prague Spring Competition and the Grand Prix de Chartres and leads an international career featuring both improvisation and interpretation of literature; two art forms which mutually enrich one another. In addition to his work at Saint Sulpice Church in Paris, Mr. Mossakowski is also professor of improvisation at the Higher School of Music in San Sebastián, Spain (Musikene), and Artist in Residence at the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, Poland.

Recent and upcoming performance highlights include concerts in venues such as Radio France, Philharmonie de Paris, MÜPA Budapest, Wroclaw’s National Forum of Music, Lyon’s Auditorium, Warsaw Philharmonie, Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Madrid’s National Music Auditorium, BOZAR Brussels, Palais Montcalm in Quebec, Bamberg’s Konzerthalle, Dresden Philharmonie, Berlin, Cologne, Vienna, Milan cathedrals, as well as with orchestras as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de France, NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Odense Symphony Orchestra, working with conductors Myung-Whun Chung, Kent Nagano, Mikko Franck, Fabien Gabel, Giancarlo Guerrero, Cristian Măcelaru and Lawrence Foster.

Karol Mossakowski seeks to keep music alive by highlighting his gifts in the art of improvisation, which plays an important role in his recitals and silent film accompaniments. In 2017, his accompaniment of Dreyer’s Jeanne d’Arc for Lyon’s Festival Lumière was released on DVD and produced by Gaumont films. In 2021 he released his first solo album Rivages, on the Tempéraments label, which features works of Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Liszt with improvisations interspersed.

As a composer, he is in residence at the Festival of Sacred Music in Saint-Malo, France, for which he composed “Les Voiles de la Lumière”, an oratorio for three organs and mixed choir which premiered in 2021, as well as “Trois Versets” for three organs, which premiered in 2022.

Prior to his appointment at St. Sulpice in Paris, Karol served as titular organist at the Cathedral in Lille in the north of France from 2017-2023, Artist in Residence at Radio France in Paris from 2019-2022, and in the 2014-2015 season he served as Young Artist in Residence at Cathedral of St. Louis King of France in New Orleans (USA).

Karol Mossakowski began studying the piano and organ with his father at the age of three. After musical studies in Poland with Elżbieta Karolak and Jarosław Tarnawski, he entered the organ, improvisation, and composition classes at the Paris Conservatory as a student of Olivier Latry, Michel Bouvard, Thierry Escaich, and Philippe Lefebvre.