Pavel Kotla is presently the music director of Redhill Sinfonia (est. 1891) and Leicester Symphony Orchestra . He is also the principal guest conductor of the City of Peterborough Symphony Orchestra .

He studied conducting at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw , in his native Poland . He received his graduate degree in performance practice and musicology at Oxford University , and took part in international music master classes in Vienna , Innsbruck ( Austria ), Siena and Bressanone ( Italy ), and with Jorma Panula.

In 1997/98 he was associated with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London as the Performance Fellow in conducting and the assistant conductor to their prestigious Opera Department. He was the music director of Bromsgrove String Orchestra (1999-2001), Stevenage Symphony Orchestra (2001-2004), Harpenden Choral Society (2000-2005) in the UK and Plock Symphony Orchestra (2005-2006) in Poland .

As a regular assistant conductor to Sir Simon Rattle between 1998 and 2003 he worked on such projects as Towards Millennium and Hear Now Festivals (Birmingham and South Bank Centre), CD recordings of Szymanowski's "King Roger" and “Harnasie” (EMI) and the Millennium Concert (Ely Cathedral) where he took part as the second conductor in the BBC live broadcast of the premier of Mark Anthony Turnage's "About Time".

He worked with professional ensembles in the UK and internationally, such as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra , Birmingham Contemporary Music Group , London Mozart Players and Drottningholm Barockensemble in Sweden . In Britain he has also appeared with Volante Strings , Nottingham Philharmonic , Wimbledon Symphony Orchestra, the City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra , the City of Peterborough Symphony Orchestra and Essex Youth Orchestra . He worked with with no less than fifteen professional orchestras in Poland ( Bialystok , Czestochowa , Gdansk , Kalisz , Kielce , Koszalin, Lublin , Lódz, Lomza, Olsztyn , Plock , Poznan , Szczecin , Walbrzych and Wroclaw ). In March 2007 he made his very successful Brazilian debut with Orquestra Sinfonica di Theatro Municipal in Sao Paulo .

In April 2004 he received a medal from the Association of Polish Orchestras and Choirs in recognition of the quality of his work in Poland .

For more information, please visit: www.pavelkotla.co.uk