Michał Karol Szymanowski

Born in 1988 in Bydgoszcz, he graduated from the Artur Rubinstein State Music Schools in Bydgoszcz, where he learned the piano with Ludmila Kasyanenko. At present, he studies piano with Ekaterina Popova-Zydron and conducting with Zygmunt Rychert at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz.

Despite his young age, the artist has already received numerous prizes and distinctions. One of his earliest major achievements was the 3rd prize in the International F. Chopin Piano Competition for children and youth in Szafarnia (2004). Three years later he won the Aniela Młynarska-Rubinstein Special Prize, President of Bydgoszcz Award and EMCY Art For Music Prize in the 7th International Competition for Young Pianists ‘Artur Rubinstein in Memoriam’ in Bydgoszcz, as well as the 5th prize in the 7th International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz held in Kiev, Ukraine. In 2005 he came second in the National F. Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
The pianist’s latest trophies are: the joint 3rd prize and Best Polish Participant Prize in the 8th International I. J. Paderewski Piano Competition in Bydgoszcz (2010) and the 1st prize in the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe Piano Competition in Katowice (2011, scholarship).

Michał Szymanowski has played recitals in Poland (in Warsaw, Kraków, Katowice, Poznań, Bydgoszcz) as well as abroad (in the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Ukraine). He has performed with such orchestras as the Symphony Orchestras of the Świętokrzyska and Pomeranian Philharmonics, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, and the Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra. In 2005 he played the European première of Zbigniew Bargielski’s Concertino for Piano and Orchestra with the Symphony Orchestra of the Artur Rubinstein State Music Schools in Bydgoszcz.