Participants Universitas Cantat 2024
Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra Amadeus
Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra Amadeus
There is no doubt about it: the Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra
is one of the crack ensembles of our time.
”The Gazette”, Montreal
The Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio was founded by Agnieszka Duczmal in Poznań in 1968. Initially supported by the Polish section of the Jeunesses Musicales movement, and later by the Poznań Music Society, following the silver Herbert von Karajan Medal awarded at the International Young Orchestra Meeting in West Berlin in 1977, the ensemble conducted by its founder was transformed first into Polish Radio and Television Orchestra, and later into Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio.
In 2009, Anna Duczmal-Mróz became the ensemble’s second conductor. The female conductor duo makes the orchestra truly unique in the world.
In April 2023, the album Music for Chamber Orchestra vol.III with works by Grażyna Bacewicz performed by the Orchestra, conducted by Maestra Agnieszka Duczmal, was chosen as the best world orchestral recording according to the BBC Music Magazine Awards.
Covering repertoire from the Baroque to contemporary music, Amadeus’ regular recordings for Polish Radio have produced more than ten thousand minutes of music, as well as hundreds of concert broadcasts. The ensemble has collaborated with foreign radio stations, including the German NDR, WDR, and SFB, the BBC in London, the CBC in Montreal, and the Mexican Radio (for which the orchestra recorded mainly Polish repertoire). The ensemble’s artistic achievements include many first performances, such as the first world recording of Josef Koffler’s transcription of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations for chamber orchestra.
With over fifty records to its credit, the Orchestra has given concerts in most European countries, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Kuwait, Taiwan, and Japan, as well as collaborated with such world-class soloists, as Maurice André, Martha Argerich, Avi Avital, Patric Gallois, Charles Richard-Hamelin, Steven Isserlis, Gary Karr, Kevin Kenner, Konstanty Andrzej Kulka, Mischa Maisky, Wynton Marsalis, Jeremy Menuhin, Igor Oistrakh, Piotr Paleczny, Michala Petri, Ivo Pogorelić, Alexandre Rabinovitch, Vadim Repin, Grigory Sokolov, Guy Touvron, Henryk Szeryng, Maxim Vengerov, Ingolf Wunder, Gheorghe Zamfir, and leading Polish soloists.
The Orchestra has performed at such renowned concert venues, as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, philharmonic concert halls in Berlin, Cologne, Munich and St. Petersburg, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna, Pollack Hall in Montreal, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, La Scala in Milan, or Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall. The ensemble regularly appears at numerous European music festivals.
Ensemble which must now rank among the finest of its kind in the world, possessed of a distinctive sound, an enviable legato and an exceptional leader in Duczmal.
“The Independent”, London
ANNA DUCZMAL-MRÓZ RECEIVED THE MAIN “FELLOW 2022-2024” AWARD FROM TAKI ALSOP CONDUCTING FELLOWSHIP.
After her debut at the Bad Kissingen Winterzauber Festival, Anna Duczmal-Mróz was hailed by the German press as “a sensational conductor (...)
who is technically flawless, when she is conducting she is very focused, precise and very attentive (...)
she builds tension perfectly and is able to maintain it, she can achieve strong emotional contrasts and finds surprising turns”.
T. Ahnert (2010)
Anna Duczmal-Mróz has been the conductor of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio since 2009. With the ensemble, she gives concerts all over the world, regularly makes archival recordings of Polish music for Polskie Radio, and her concerts are broadcast by Polskie Radio. This extraordinary ensemble was originally founded by her mother, ground-breaking conductor Agnieszka Duczmal, in 1968.
Anna Duczmal-Mróz has conducted concerts in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Austria, France, Spain, Mexico, Japan, and South America, and has collaborated many times with all the most important orchestras in Poland, including the National Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, and NOSPR. In July 2022, she made her debut with the legendary Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic in the USA. She has performed in excellent concert halls such as Wiener Konzerthaus Mozart Hall, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Gustav Mahler Saal, and Max-Littmanenn Saal in Bad Kissingen, and at many significant festivals in Poland (including the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival and Chopin and His Europe), Germany, France, Spain, Japan, and South America. She has performed with such outstanding soloists as Wynton Marsalis and musicians of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Avi Avital, Daniel Hope, Ingolf Wunder, Kirill Troussov, Piotr Paleczny, Konstanty Andrzej Kulka, Janusz Wawrowski, Charles Richard-Hamelin, Georgijs Osokins, Lukas Geniusas, Dimitry Shishkin, Verico Tchumburidze, Bartosz Nizioł, Łukasz Kuropaczewski, Soyoung Yoon, Agata Szymczewska, Tomasz Strahl, Alexander Gadjiev, Martin Garcia Garcia, and Marcin Wyrostek.
The conductor promotes Polish music during concerts in Poland and abroad, in record labels and on many radio stations around the world. She is the creator of the world’s first 5-CD series with all of Mieczysław Weinberg’s chamber symphonies, which were published by the German publishing house CPO and DUX and appreciated by many critics in Poland, Germany, France, and Spain. The albums received 3 Fryderyk nominations, a nomination for the ICMA 2020 award, and the Spanish “Exeptional” award of “Scherzo” magazine. This resulted in the publication of an article by Anna Duczmal-Mróz about the symphonic works of M. Weinberg in the Spanish music magazine “Scherzo”.
In 2022, she organised conducting courses for young conductors at the Elbląg Music Masterclass.
In 2021, she was a jury member in two international conducting competitions (Antal Dorati International Conducting Competition and Von Bulov International Conducting Competition) and in an international competition for instrumentalists.
For 9 years, she conducted master classes for young pianists at the Paderewski Piano Academy together with the Toruń Symphony Orchestra, working with outstanding pianists such as Ilia Scheps, Robert McDonald, and Andrzej Jasiński.
Her collaboration with Capella Bydgostiensis resulted in the recording of an album for the DUX label - “hits of the 20th century” under the patronage of the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music. The album output of Anna Duczmal-Mróz also includes albums recorded with the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio: a CD with music by Sebastian Krajewski, released in 2015 by DUX, and Astor Piazzolla’s compositions recorded during a live concert with bandoneonist Wiesław Prządka.
In 2018, as music director, she prepared the premiere of the contemporary opera “Awantura w Recco, czyli drzewko wolności” by Maciej Małecki to the libretto by Wojciech Młynarski at Opera Nova, and in 2019, the premiere of the ballet “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by F. Mendelssohn at the Baltic Opera in Gdańsk.
In 2014, she organised conducting courses and conducted concerts in South America. In the 2004/2005 season she was an assistant to Maestro Eiji Oue at the NDR Radiophilharmonie, and in the 2006/2007 season she was a conductor-assistant to Maestro Antoni Wit at the National Philharmonic.
She began her musical education as a violinist. When she was studying under Professor Krzysztof Węgrzyn at the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany, her conducting talent was discovered by Maestro Eiji Oue, under whom she completed conducting studies in the years 2001-2005. In 2000, she founded the Benjamin Britten Kammerorchester student orchestra in Hannover, with which she gave concerts in Germany. She graduated with distinction, conducting her diploma concert with the NDR-Radiophilharmonie orchestra in Hannover. Anna Duczmal-Mróz has received a scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage several times.
