“I received the best award that I could ever dream of,” Duczmal-Mróz posted on her Facebook page. “I am a Fellow of Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship and will be mentored by legendary Marin Alsop.”
Launched two decades ago by the famous conductor Marin Alsop, with financial support from Japanese business mogul Tomio Taki, the fellowship provides intensive coaching and mentorship to aspiring female conductors.
The Pole will serve as Alsop’s assistant in her concerts across Europe and the United States in the years 2022 to 2024, and will herself conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during the Ravinia Festival in July 2022. She will also receive the $20,000 honorarium.
World-renowned Marin Alsop is the first woman to become music director and principal conductor of major orchestras in the United States and Britain. In 2013 she was the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the BBC Proms in London.
Anna Duczmal-Mróz started her musical education as a violinist. She made her conducting debut in 2003 with Polish Radio’s Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, which was founded by her mother, Agnieszka Duczmal, in 1968. She now serves as the orchestra’s principal conductor. She has performed with the Amadeus Orchestra and other ensembles in many European countries, Mexico, Japan, and South America.
A total of six women qualified for the finals of the 2022-24 Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship (TACF). Apart from the Fellowship for Duczmal-Mróz, there were two Associate Fellowships, and three Award Recipients, one of which went to Poland’s Anna Sułkowska-Migoń, She is the conductor of the Ars Cameralis Choir and Conductor-in-Residence of the Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra.
In previous years, two Polish conductors won TACF Associate Fellowships, Marzena Diakun in 2015 and Marta Gardolińska in 2017. (mk)