Conductor

Mathias Rogala-Koczorowski is the founding conductor of the WPO and remains as passionate and committed today as he was in 1998 when the WPO was established.  He also has considerable experience as an orchestral horn player, having been a member of the Queensland Theatre Orchestra and freelanced with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and Bolshoi Ballet. He trained with the ABC National Training Orchestra and at the Musikhochschule Rheinland, Köln, in Germany.

Having started playing with the Waverley College and Waverley Bondi Beach Bands in Sydney, Koczorowski served his orchestral apprenticeship with the ABC National Training Orchestra 1974-75, while studying French horn with Alan Mann at the Sydney Conservatorium. He spent a year with the Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra and two years with the Queensland Theatre Orchestra (1977-79) under Viennese maestro, Georg Tintner, before to furthering his studies in Cologne in Germany under Professor Erich Penzel.

Upon his return to Sydney in 1981 he freelanced with the Australian Opera, and, as Principal Horn in the Bolshoi Ballet and the Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra. As Band Coordinator N.S.W. (1997-99) he helped organise the Australian Bicentennial Band Championships and managed the Australian tour of the renowned Black Dyke Mills Band.

Since 1990 he has been Brass Teacher at Mitchell Conservatorium of Music in Bathurst and Conductor of the Bathurst City and RSL Concert Band, as well as playing chamber music with the John Gould String Quartet, the Esprit de Cor Horn Quartet and the Bathurst Brass Quintet. In 1992 he toured the USA as Principal Horn with the Australian Wind Orchestra.