The orchestra's music director Łukasz Borowicz accepted the award alongside managing director Wojciech Nentwig at Düsseldorf’s Tonhalle venue.
They were joined by a representative from the Harmonia Mundi label and German baritone Samuel Hasselhorn, who performed Gustav Mahler’s song Revenge during the ceremony, accompanied by the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker under Borowicz.
Released last year by Harmonia Mundi, Urlicht. Songs of Death and Resurrection features works by Mahler, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Hans Pfitzner, Engelbert Humperdinck, Alban Berg and Walter Braunfels.
The ICMA jury praised the album as "remarkable," citing Hasselhorn’s "outstanding singing, grippingly dramatic and movingly sensitive throughout the programme," as well as Borowicz’s ability to create "highly evocative 'sound theatre'" with the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra.
"The symbiosis of voice and orchestra is just perfect," the jury said.
This is not the first ICMA win for the Poznań Philharmonic. In 2018, the orchestra received the award for its recording of Quo Vadis, an oratorio by Polish composer Feliks Nowowiejski (1877–1946).
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