Singer Jakub Józef Orliński received the accolade in the Personality of the Year category. At 29, he is one of the world’s most sought-after countertenors, feeling equally at home in Baroque opera, sacred music and hip-hop.
Earlier this year, in an in-depth profile of Orliński headlined “A millennial countertenor,” the American weekly magazine The New Yorker wrote that the Polish singer “brings a swooning sultriness, and a bunch of break-dancing moves, to the Baroque music revival.”
The Coryphaeus Prize in the Discovery of the Year category went to violinist Zuzanna Budzyńska and pianist Szymon Ogryzek for promoting Polish music internationally and for recording a CD entitled Polonaises.
The 10/40 Quartet in Museums project by the Silesian String Quartet was given an award in the Event of the Year category.
To mark its 40th anniversary, the Silesian Quartet ventured outside traditional concert halls and gave 10 concerts in museum interiors, performing some of the finest works by 20th-century Polish composers.
The Honorary Coryphaeus for Lifetime Achievement went to tenor Wiesław Ochman. Now 82, he was the first Polish singer of the postwar era to skyrocket to international fame, including performances at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in the late 1970s.
The Polish Music Awards are traditionally presented on October 1, International Music Day.
(mk/gs)