The final concert of the 1st Mieczysław Karłowicz International Composers’ Competition was held on Friday, 19 March 2021 at 7.00 p.m. CET, and broadcast via the Szczecin Philharmonic Facebook and YouTube channels. Open to composers of all ages and nationalities, the subject of the Competition was a composition for symphonic orchestra of a duration between 9-12 minutes. All submitted works had to be original, unpublished, not previously performed in public, and not awarded a prize in any other competition. 176 works from Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the USA were submitted.
During the final concert, the six finalists—which had been selected during the first stage of the Competition from among 176 pieces submitted from all over the world—were given their world premiere, competing for a final prize pool of PLN 100,000. The winners that were announced at the end of the concert are as follows:
- FIRST PRIZE: Tomas Peire-Serrate – Borealis
- SECOND PRIZE: Choi Jin Seok – Sunrise in Hyangil Am
- THIRD PRIZE (ex aequo): Claudio Passilongo – Symphonic Dystopia and Tomasz Szczepanik – Rumori
- ORCHESTRA AWARD and AUDIENCE AWARD: Andrzej Szachowski – Helix Nebula
- FINALIST: Adam Porębski – Iluzje
Sources: [polmic.pl, karlowiczcompetition.pl]