The award is given annually for “outstanding artistic achievements, the promotion of Polish music at home and abroad and for bringing it closer to millions of Polish Radio listeners.”
Duczmal, who has served as music director of the Polish Radio Amadeus Chamber Orchestra in the western city of Poznań for more than four decades, is the first female recipient of the award in its history.
The awards ceremony was held during a concert on Sunday at Polish Radio's Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio in Warsaw, with Duczmal conducting the Amadeus Orchestra in works by Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Wojciech Kilar.
Later this week, a double CD album is due to be launched with a selection of recordings made by the Warsaw Philharmonic and the Amadeus Orchestra under Duczmal for Polish Radio in 1978 and 1980.
These include the orchestral version of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 in G minor Op. 13, and extensive excerpts from Handel’s forgotten opera Sosarme, which had its premiere in 1732 in London.
In the liner notes to the album, Małgorzata Małaszko, head of Polish Radio 2, the public broadcaster’s arts-and-music-channel, recalls that Duczmal was once described by Witold Rowicki, a former longtime music director of the Warsaw Philharmonic, as an extraordinary artist who “has music in her hands.”
This concise label, Małaszko writes, “seems to be extremely accurate and all-embracing as it reflects not only the essence of a conductor’s profession, but also Duczmal’s personality traits such as passion, musicality, character, determination, and sensitivity.”
Małaszko further writes that “the great conductors honoured with the Diamond Baton Awards in previous years, such as Jan Krenz, Stefan Rachoń, Stanisław Wisłocki, Antoni Wit, Krzysztof Penderecki, Kazimierz Kord, Stefan Stuligrosz, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Jerzy Semkow, Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Tadeusz Strugała and Jacek Kaspszyk, have provided audiences with unforgettable interpretations of classical music … their creative interpretations helping enhance the international standing of Polish music, while adding to the treasure-trove of the public broadcaster’s archives.”
Duczmal graduated in conducting in 1971 from the Academy of Music in Poznań. While still as a student, she founded a chamber orchestra that was taken over by Polish Radio in 1977 and was later renamed the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra.
She was the first woman conductor to perform at Milan’s La Scala opera house.
(mk/gs)