Marzena Diakun, photo: c/o the organiser
The winners of the contest received Golden, Silver and Bronze batons and a prize sum of 25, 20 and 15 thousand euros, respectively. The international jury was led by Antoni Wit, chief conductor of the National Philharmonic of Warsaw. Their verdict included a decisive majority of votes for Daniel Smith.
Smith was also the favorite of the audience, and his participation in the competition was the result of an unexpected turn of events. Eliminated after the contest's first phase, Smith was asked to rejoin when another conductor was forced to leave due to private circumstances.
Smith (born 1981) is a graduate of the Sydney University Music Conservatory. His past awards include the International Review of Young Conductors held in 2010 in Białystok in northeast Poland. He has conducted the Sydney Symphonic Orchestra, the Danish National Symphonic Orchestra and ensembles from Sweden, Canada, Spain and Bulgaria.
Other finalists included Andrew Koehler (U.S.), who received the first special mention and an award of 10,000 euros, Maja Metelska (Poland) with a prize of 7,000 euros and Zoi Tsokanou who received 5,000 euros.
Antoni Wit , the head of the jury, declared that this year's contest was especially memorable for its split of finalists between men and women, and the unexpected circumstances that intervened in the course of the competition. Other jury members included Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk (Poland), Juozas Domarkas (Lithuania), Matrinez Izquierdo (Spain), John Neschling (Brazil) and Takuo Yuasa (Japan), a participant of the competition's first edition, in 1979.
Auditions took place at the Karol Szymanowski Music Academy in Katowice. The competing conductors were accompanied by the Symphonic Orchestra of the Silesian Philharmonic. All participants were required to be under 35; 40 conductors were selected from 167 submissions to take part in the auditions. For the contest's second and third phases, conductors chose a compostion by Witold Lutosławski, Mieczysław Karłowicz or Karol Szymanowski.
The laureates’ concert is scheduled to take place in Katowice on the 25th of November, and it travels to Warsaw on the following day.
The Katowice concert was held under the honorary patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski. The event is listed by the World Federation of International Music Competitions in Geneva, which names the world’s 129 most prestigious musical contests. The Grzegorz Fitelberg Competition is significant due to the number of candidates who are able to compete. It was initiated by Poland’s prominent conductor, Karol Stryja, the last student of Grzegorz Fitelberg. The first international edition of the Competition was held in 1979, 100 years after the death of its patron.
Grzegorz Fitelberg (1879-1953) was a composer and one of the most acclaimed Polish conductors. He was a great propagator of 20th-century Polish music, notably the works of Karol Szymanowski.
Editor: SRS
Source: press release