Polish-American conductor Wojciech Milewski has built a career across the symphonic and operatic stages, bringing energy, warmth, and a deeply collaborative spirit to performances. His work reflects a particular passion for late-Romantic repertoire, American music, living composers, and the music of his native Poland.
His 2026–27 season includes a debut with the Savannah Philharmonic, following a recent debut with the Long Bay Symphony and appearances with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. He currently serves as Music Director of the Summerville Orchestra and Charleston Opera Theater.
Now in his eleventh season with the Summerville Orchestra, Milewski has led significant artistic and institutional growth, establishing adventurous programming, educational outreach, and community engagement as central parts of its identity. The orchestra received the 2023 American Prize in Orchestral Performance, along with national recognition for innovative programming in 2023 and 2025. He has commissioned and premiered works by Rene Orth, Kenyon Wilson, Chris Pilsner, and Chris Karpus, and collaborated with guest artists including pianists Jonathan Mamora and Phillip Bush, violinists Yuriy Bekker, Ben Baker and Thierry de Lucas Neves, cellist Gabriel Martins, trumpeters Antonio Marti and Aaron Romm, and more.
His Polish heritage occupies a special place in his work with orchestras. Born in Warsaw, Milewski is a passionate advocate for Polish repertoire, particularly the music of Mieczysław Karłowicz. In 2024, the Summerville Orchestra’s performance of Karłowicz’s Eternal Songs received honorary patronage from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland.
Central to Milewski’s work is a belief that the conductor should bridge the distance between performers and audience. In Summerville, he has developed free community performances, a tuition-free youth orchestra program, and Music Chats, a monthly ‘infor-mance’ series at the Dorchester County Library inviting audiences into the stories and ideas behind the music. He sees education as a crucial pillar of performance itself.
Opera is equally central to Milewski’s artistic life. As Music Director of Charleston Opera Theater, he has led recent productions of Il barbiere di Siviglia, Carmen, La bohème, L’Elisir d’Amore and Don Giovanni. These productions fostered collaborations with artists including Ginger Costa-Jackson, Michael Chioldi, Jasmine Habersham, Kevin Glavin, and Kameron Lopreore. He has also served as Music Director for the company’s Piccolo Spoleto productions, often conducting from the piano. His relationship with Santa Fe Opera began in 2016 as Music Director for the world premiere of Joe Illick’s UnShakeable, returning for several seasons thereafter to lead the company’s educational touring productions.
A pianist and clarinetist, Milewski’s conducting has been shaped by years spent on the other side of the podium. He has performed as a guest pianist with the national tours of Wicked and The Book of Mormon and as a clarinetist in several professional orchestras and opera pits. That experience informs an approach rooted in collaboration, central to his identity as a “musician’s conductor.”
Milewski is a two-time winner of the American Prize in Conducting (2023 and 2025), recipient of the 2019 HSO Harold Farberman Prize, and a finalist of the 2019 Los Angeles Conducting Competition. He was also recently named one of Charleston’s “40 Under 40” by the Charleston Regional Business Journal.
Raised in New York City after emigrating from Poland, Milewski earned his Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting with distinction from the University of New Mexico and graduated summa cum laude from SUNY Oswego with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Music and International Relations. Before committing himself entirely to music, he pursued a career in International Relations, including an internship at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C.
Away from the podium, he can usually be found playing soccer, cycling, cooking, disappearing outdoors, reading, spending time with his girlfriend Caitlin and dog Cleo, or conducting an ongoing and entirely unscientific search for the perfect cortado.