Sunday, 2016 November 6^th, 7 PM

Great Guild Hall

AMADEUS Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio

Anna Duczmal - Mroz, conductor

Soloist – the finalist of the 17th International Chopin Piano Competition (Warsaw)
Georgy Osokin (piano)

Program:  F. Chopin – Piano Concerto No.1 in E-minor, M.Mussorgsky – “Pictures at an Exhibition”

The Chamber Orchestra “Amadeus” was founded in Poznań by Agnieszka Duczmal in 1968. Initially it worked under the patronage of “Jeunesses Musicales” and later of the Poznań Music Society. In1977 the Orchestra became a full-time employed group of the Polish Radio and Television. Since 1988 the Orchestra has been condusted by Agnieszka Duczmal as the Chamber Orchestra of the Polish Radio “Amadeus”. The breakthrough in the Orchestra's history was winning the Herbert von Karajan Silver Medal at the International Meeting of Young Orchestras in West Berlin in 1976. The Orchestra co-operates with world famous soloists, takes part in festivals, makes numerous tours of Europe, both Americas,  Asia and the Far East and performs in the most famous concert halls in the world (including e.g. La Scala).

The Orchestra regularly makes records for the Polish Radio (over 10000 minutes of music covering repertoire ranging from baroque to the contemporary times), also for foreign radio and television channels, like e.g. BBC (London), CBC (Montreal), NDR, WDR, SFD, the Mexican radio and more than 5 hours of music for 1 Channel of French TV.

Agnieszka Duczmal is the founder, the exclusive conductor and art director of the Chamber Orchestra of the Polish Radio “Amadeus”, and also the first woman conductor to perform in the famous La Scala in Milan. The recognition won with the audience and critique is confirmed by enthusiastic reviews and also by prizes, among others an honorable mention at the 4th Herbert von Karajan International Conductor Contest in Berlin (1975), the Herbert von Karajan silver medal at the International Young Orchestra Meeting in West Berlin (1976) and the title of “La donna del mondo” 1982 (“The woman of the world”) granted under UNESCO's patronage by the president of Italy in recognition for the outstanding cultural, scientific and social achievements. She graduated with honours from the State College of Music in Poznań (1966-1971) where she studied conducting tutored by Professor Witold Krzemiński. Then she began to work as a conductor assistant in the State Philharmonic in Poznań and a conductor in Poznań Opera, where she prepared, among others, the Polish premiere of an opera by B. Britten “The Midsummer Night's Dream”.

Georgijs Osokins is born on 25 April 1995, in Riga. He began learning piano at the age of five and made his concert debut as a ten-year-old in Mozart’s Concerto in D minor, K466 with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra. He is a student of Sergejs Osokins and since 2009 has also taken lessons from Mikhail Voskresensky. Since September 2015, he has been continuing his studies at the Juilliard School of Music. He has won the 9th International Chopin Competition for Young Pianists in Moscow (2014), the Scriabin Competition in Paris (2009) and the Jurmala International Piano Competition in Latvia (2010). He has also won the special prize for the best performance of a work by Chopin in the ‘Rina Sala Gallo’ International Piano Competition in Monza, Italy. He has performed in concert with the Lviv Symphony Orchestra, the Amber Orchestra of Liepāja, the Armenian National Orchestra and the Wratislavia Chamber Orchestra, among others. He has won a reputation for his prizes and appearances in international festivals and has also been distinguished by an award from the Latvian Minister of Culture. He has attended masterclasses given by Dmitry Bashkirov, Sergei Babayan, Bernd Goetzke, Georg Friedrich Schenck and Einar Steen-Nøkleberg.
Georgijs Osokins caused a sensation at the 17th International Chopin Piano Competition in 2015 when he was dubbed by critics as "exceptional and unpredictable." He was too much a "revolutionary" to be one of the prize winners; however, being a finalist proved enough.