Poland in New Zealand

The applications for the Stanisław Moniuszko International Competition of Polish Music can be submitted until 14 May. The participants will contest in two categories: for pianists and for chamber ensembles, with the total prize money exceeding 80,000 euros. The event is organised by the Institute of Music and Dance, and its main financial prizes are funded by the Polish Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sport.

– 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. We 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.

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 individual programmes to 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 Tadeusz Paciorkiewicz. Equally important are Polish female composers represented by Maria Szymanowska and Grażyna Bacewicz.

The Competition accepts instrumental musicians applying as soloists or chamber ensembles (from two to twelve musicians). There are no age or citizenship restrictions for the participants. The jury in both categories consists of distinguished Polish and foreign musicians and musical personalities. This year, the jury in the piano category will be headed by Jarosław Drzewiecki and in the chamber ensemble category by Andrzej Tatarski.

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 and the Société Frédéric Chopin Genève award 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 winners of the Competition are thus given an opportunity to showcase their skills in individually conceived programmes featuring Polish music during performances in Poland and abroad. Another surprise for the participants is that live recordings of selected works made during the successive stages of the Competition will later appear on a multi-CD album as an audio chronicle of the Competition. In this way, some of the compositions may be given their worldwide premieres on the record market.

The first edition of the Competition was held in 2019. There were 81 participants from 6 countries. The piano category was won by Pavel Dombrovsky from Russia and the chamber ensemble category by a duo of violinists: Marta Gidaszewska and Robert Łaguniak, who currently perform as the Polish Violin Duo. 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: www.konkursmuzykipolskiej.pl.