Pianists and chamber ensembles can now submit their applications for the Second Stanisław Moniuszko International Competition of Polish Music !
The second edition of the Stanisław Moniuszko International Competition of Polish Music will take place at the Artur Malawski Podkarpacka Philharmonic Hall in Rzeszów between 11 and 18 September 2021. From now until 14 May 2021, the candidates will be able to submit their applications by filling in online forms available on the dedicated website: polishmusiccompetition.pl. The Competition is organised by the Institute of Music and Dance. The prizes are funded by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
– For the second edition of the competition we are awaiting numerous applications from both Poland and abroad. Now everything is in the hands of the musicians, it is their own decision to make. There is no better time than now to start working on the individual competition programmes. We also hope that the professors from educational music establishments will play a crucial role of encouraging their own students to take part in the event – says Katarzyna Meissner, director of the Institute of Music and Dance.
Worth mentioning is the fact that there are no age or citizenship restrictions for the candidates. During the competition, the musicians will present works selected from amongst those written by 56 Polish composers mostly active in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The participants create a programme that they will perform in the successive stages of the competition. Alongside such famous composers as Chopin, Paderewski, Górecki or Penderecki, we will also find less well-known representatives of different styles and musical eras, such as Antoni Kątski, Eugeniusz Pankiewicz and Stefan Kisielewski. Equally important are Polish female composers represented by Maria Szymanowska and Grażyna Bacewicz.
The competition will be chronicled in a series of recordings in electronic and CD formats distributed worldwide. In such a way, several works that have never been released before will finally have their world premiere recordings.
– When it comes to early music, it is now an established trend that performers seek out forgotten compositions that have never been performed in modern times. The musicians spend months looking through the libraries and archives. In our competition, however, the musicians will have a much easier job – the neglected compositions will only be a few clicks away. That is because we have made it our goal to restore the beautiful and unjustly forgotten repertoire into the concert programme and performance practice – concludes Katarzyna Meissner.
The participants of the Second Stanisław Moniuszko International Competition of Polish Music will contest for the total prize money in the amount of over eighty thousand euros to be won in two categories: piano and chamber ensembles. The juries of both categories will feature distinguished musicians and musical personalities from Poland and abroad. The applications can be submitted via an online system on 14 May 2021 at the latest. The performers will also be given an opportunity to win a number of special prizes: from financial rewards to a chance of appearing at leading Polish concert halls and selected festivals. Amongst the awards will be a 500 euro prize for the best performance of a piano sonata or a chamber composition written by Miłosz Magin, which has been funded by the composer’s daughter Margot Magin. Also the Société Frédéric Chopin Genève award will be given in the form of a recital performance during the Chopin Festival in Geneva in 2021. Collaborating with the competition, the Polish Institutes (Instytuty Polskie) will also award selected winners recital performances in the cities where they are located, such as Bratislava, Saint Petersburg and Vienna.
The rulebook, framework schedule of the Competition, application forms, information on the repertoire, composers and sheet music, as well as all the updates, can be found on the dedicated website: polishmusiccompetition.pl.
The first edition of the competition was held in 2019. It featured 81 participants from 6 different countries. The piano category was won by Pavel Dombrovsky from Russia and the chamber ensemble category by a Polish duo of violinists: Marta Gidaszewska and Robert Łaguniak, who currently perform as the Polish Violin Duo.
— Press release, Stanisław Moniuszko International Competition of Polish Music
