The Fryderyk awards in Szczecin. The gala of presenting the most important Polish music awards will be held in Western Pomerania!

• Szczecin and Western Pomerania as official hosts of the Fryderyk Festival 2021
• Classical music gala: 25 June in the Castle Opera House in Szczecin
• Presentation of the Fryderyk awards in the popular and jazz music categories: 5 August with the audience present

 The most important Polish music awards – Fryderyki – will come to Szczecin. This summer, Western Pomerania will be the host of the biggest stars of the Polish music scene. On 25 June, the official gala of presenting music awards in the categories of classical music will be held. Artists of the popular and jazz music will be presented with music awards in Szczecin on 5 August.

“Fryderyki is the most prestigious award in our country.  I am glad that this music award will come to Szczecin this year. Our region is famous for music events at the highest artistic level and I’m confident that the Fryderyk Festival galas will also provide many unforgettable emotions and artistic impressions,” commented Piotr Krzystek, the Mayor of Szczecin.

“Western Pomerania is made up with people whose roots come from different places and different culture. This makes us able to derive from enormous diversity, and our sensitivity, which was shaped by intricate history of our ancestors, makes us open-minded and curious about new experiences. This is also where unforgettable musical moments take place, which depict the enormous diversity and richness of musical culture. I am even more glad that it is in the heart of the region, in Szczecin, that we will honour wonderful Polish artists and music creators, who will be presented with the most prestigious Polish awards – Fryderyki 2021,” said Olgierd Geblewicz, the Marshal of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship.

Andrzej Puczyński, the chairman of the Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry, the organiser of the award, adds, “We are very pleased that in those exceptionally difficult times for the music industry we have gathered a group of such renowned partners with whom we will be celebrating the festival of Polish music. The Fryderyk Awards are exceptional prizes, deserving a top-class setting and I am convinced that, thanks to the cooperation with the City of Szczecin and the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, it will meet the set standards.”

The Fryderyk award is the prize of the Polish music industry, granted for phonographic achievements of the past year. In the field of classical music, it is granted in ten categories, representing different styles and genres of music, from solo and chamber music to opera and symphonic music, and from Baroque to contemporary times.

We will find out which classical music albums will be honoured with the Fryderyk 2021 Award during the official gala, which will be held at the Castle Opera House in Szczecin on 25 June this year.

This year, the singers Aleksandra Kurzak, Agata Zubel and Agnieszka Rehlis, the violinist Jakub Jakowisz in a duet with the pianist Bartosz Bednarczyk, the “Camerata Silesia” Katowice City Singers Ensemble , the Wroclaw Baroque Ensemble, and also the “Sinfonia Iuventus” Polish orchestra  will have a chance to win this exceptional statuette.

Full list of nominees in the categories of classical music

On that day, special awards will also be presented – Gold Fryderyk Awards with which the Council of the Phonographic Academy (Classical Music Section) honoured two outstanding personalities of the Polish music culture this year: the singer and pedagogue Jadwiga Rappé,  whose career encompasses thousands of recitals, symphonic concerts and opera performances in the most famous halls in the world, and the wonderful conductor, chief and artistic director of the Polish Chamber Choir “Schola Cantorum Gedanesis” – Jan Łukaszewski.

The presentation of the statuettes within the historic walls of the Castle of Pomeranian Dukes in Szczecin, where the Castle Opera House is located, will be accompanied by concerts performed by outstanding Polish artists.

The evening will start with the energetic and ceremonious music by Antonio Vivaldi (Allegro from the Olimpiada opera). Elwira Janasik (mezzo-soprano), one of the most talented singers of the young generation, will present an aria from the Orlando Furioso opera, and she will be accompanied by the baroque orchestra Capella Cracoviensis conducted by Jan Tomasz Adamus.

One of the stars of the evening will be the notable Polish flutist Ania Karpowicz, winner of this year’s Polityka Passport, promoter of the music of Mieczysław Weinberg, and a composer associated with three cultures: Polish, Jewish, and Russian. Mieczysław Weinberg was born in Warsaw in 1909 and although he spent most of his life in Moscow, he preserved a sense of belonging to Polish culture and language. His music, until recently forgotten, has become one of the biggest discoveries in music in recent decades. Weinberg has been a hot name in the world of classical music for many years. Ania Karpowicz will perform five of the composer’s miniatures for flute and strings.

Nominated for the Fryderyk 2021 Award in the category of Chamber Music Album of the Year, the Silesian Quartet will celebrate the memory of Krzysztof Penderecki, the master of contemporary music who died on 29 March last year. This outstanding ensemble will perform his String Quartet No. IV (2016), in which the composer summarised his compositional experiences in an essential way, from avant-garde exploration to an attempt to achieve a synthesis with tradition and the spiritual dimension of music.

 The pianist Piotr Sałajczyk will remind us the mazurkas from Op. 50 (No. 1 and 16) by Karol Szymanowski, a great continuator of the Chopin tradition and unalterably “the second Polish composer after Chopin”.  

The concert programme also included a small opera gala performed by notable signers: Aleksandra Olczyk (soprano) and Łukasz Goliński (baritone). Aleksandra Olczyk is one of the most appreciated coloraturas in Europe nowadays. Her showpiece performance became the Queen of the Night from the Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which she presented on the Staatsoper Unter den Linden stage in Berlin. She is about to make her debut on this part at the New York Metropolitan Opera, delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The artist will perform her pièce de résistance, aria of the Queen of the Night, Der Hoelle Rache. She will also perform the duet La ci darem la mano from Mozart’s Don Giovanni opera with baritone Łukasz Goliński,  a native of Szczecin, who is currently enjoying success on the opera stages of Frankfurt, Zurich, Barcelona and London (Royal Opera House), and Łukasz Goliński himself will play for this one time the role of Figaro from Mozart’s Opera The Marriage of Figaro.

The soloists will be accompanied by the orchestra of the Castle Opera House in Szczecin conducted by Jerzy Wołusiuk.

The contemporary part of the concert, inspired by smooth jazz and film music, will be represented by the pianist Aleksander Dębicz. Accompanied by Łukasz Kuropaczewski (guitar) he will perform his own arrangement of Isaac Albeniz’s Asturias, a piece maintained in an Iberian style. It is a fragment of this year’s excellent album by the Dębicz-Kuropaczewski duet entitled Adela.

A report of this ceremonious gala of presenting the Fryderyk 2021 Awards in the categories of classical music will be broadcasted on TVP Kultura, and also on Polish Radio 2.

Another part of the Fryderyk Festival 2021 in Szczecin will be the gala of popular and jazz music. Exceptional concerts with the nominated artists will take place on Thursday, 5 August in the Netto Arena Hall. The organisers of the event announce that a pool of tickets will become available for music fans. Details will be announced soon.

The Fryderyk Awards have been granted since 1995 by the Phonographic Academy, i.e. the jury instituted by the Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry, consisting of over 1.5 thousand artists, creators, producers, journalists and phonographic industry representatives. Nominees for the Fryderyk Awards are selected by secret vote of all member of the Academy divided into three sections:  popular music, classical music and jazz. Members of the Academy can belong only to one section and they have the right to vote only within this section. This gives everyone a chance to express themselves in the domain of music that is closest to them.

The winners are selected in the second round of secret vote. The result of this vote remains secret until the winners are announced during official galas – classical music, popular music and jazz.

The author of the Fryderyk statuette is the sculptor Dorota Dziekiewicz-Pilich.

Organisers of the event: The Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry, the Phonographic Academy

Hosts of the event: The City of Szczecin, the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, the Castle Opera House in Szczecin

Content partners: the STOART Union of Performing Artists, the Szczecin Tourist Agency

Media partners: TVP Kultura, Polish Radio Programme 2

About the Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry (ZPAV)

ZPAV is an association of producers of  music phonograms and videograms, bringing together about 90% of the music industry in Poland. It has been authorised by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage for the collective management of rights of phonographic producers. Since its establishment in 1991, ZPAV has been working on the dynamic development of the music industry in Poland.

It is a national group of  the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which unites and represents the world music industry (over 1400 companies in 66 countries). ZPAV is active in the legislative forum, it cooperates with law enforcement and with the judiciary in counteracting copyright and related rights violations, it conducts broad educational and promotional activities, supporting the development of the music industry – among others, it prepares the Official Sales Chart (OLiS) and awards Gold, Platinum and Diamond records.

Since 1995, ZPAV has been the organiser of the Fryderyk ceremony of music awards granted by the music community: musicians, authors, composers, music producers, journalists, and the phonographic industry, associated in the Phonographic Academy.