Żywieckie Suwakowanie
XX edition of the largest trombone and tuba
event in Poland
July 19-25, 2026
Robert Żelazko is a lecturer at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź, where he has been affiliated since 2011. In 2025, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts.
From 2007 to 2011, he served as Principal Trombonist of the Warsaw Philharmonic. He graduated from the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, where he studied with Professor Roman Siwek, and from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover, where he studied with Professor Jonas Bylund, graduating in 2006. For several years, he further developed his playing under the guidance of Ardash Marderosian, Principal Trombonist of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and a student of the legendary Arnold Jacobs. He has participated in masterclasses with some of the world’s leading trombonists, including Christian Lindberg, Jörgen van Rijen, Dany Bonvin, Jay Friedman, Joseph Alessi, Ingemar Roos, David Bruchez, and Håkan Björkman.
Robert is a prizewinner of several competitions, including the National Trombone Festival in Warsaw and the Remington Trombone Choir Competition in Birmingham. In 2007, he was also a finalist of the Smith/Shires Prize Tenor Trombone Competition at the International Trombone Festival in Las Vegas. He has performed alongside Christian Lindberg and Håkan Hardenberger during the Music Festival in Sierre, Switzerland. He has twice received a scholarship from the Minister of Culture, Art and National Heritage, in 2003 and 2020.
As a lecturer, he has taken part on numerous occasions in the Żywieckie Suwakowanie Festival and the International Conference on the Art of Performing Orchestral Excerpts in Łódź. He is the initiator and artistic director of the First International Hybrid Conference “The Trombone in Polish Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries: Inspirations and Perspectives”, held in Łódź in 2021. At the invitation of Zygmunt Krauze, he participated in the SYNTHETIS International Composition Courses in Radziejowice. He has also contributed to several album recordings, including those by the Hanover Trombone Octet in 2009 and Sinfonia Varsovia Brass in 2017.
He is a member of the Stokłosa Collective Orchestra, a popular music orchestra with which he has taken part in numerous television music productions, including the Sopot Hit Festival for Polsat, Christmas Carols at the Foot of the Tatra Mountains for TVP1, the charity concert Who Is Calling Us marking the 75th anniversary of GOPR for TVP1, and the concert Birthday in Europe, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Poland’s membership in the European Union.
As an orchestral musician, he regularly collaborates with Sinfonia Varsovia, with whom he has toured China, South Korea, Japan, France, Germany, and Austria.
Robert Żelazko is one of the few trombonists in the world to have mastered the alto, tenor, and bass trombone. He is equally at home in both classical and popular music.