The final concert of the 64th Tadeusz Baird Young Composers Competition and the announcement of the winners took place on April 16th, 2023 as part of the 7th International Festival of Piano Duos ‘Duettissimo!’. The Main Prize and a distinction were awarded. Works for this year’s competition were performed by Novi Piano Duo and Sanami Piano Duo.
Representatives of the Jury—Bartłomiej Kominek (chairman), Maciej Negrey, Dariusz Przybylski, Bartłomiej Wąsik and Wojciech Widłak—chose the following compositions to be honored:
- Tadeusz Baird Award: Qualia by Dawid Grenda
- Distinction: ConfRotation by Jakub Jung
Formerly known as the Youth Competition of the Polish Composers’ Union (ZKP), the Tadeusz Baird Young Composers Competition has been organized annually by ZKP since 1958. It is intended to support young Polish composers at the start of their career and encourage them to work independently.
The main prize—the Tadeusz Baird Award—is awarded in the amount of $2,500 USD. The Tadeusz Baird Award is intended to be used for further compositional studies and was traditionally funded by Alina Sawicka-Baird, wife of the composer who sadly passed away earlier this year. In 2019, the main prize was funded by composer Marta Ptaszyńska, and since 2020 the Award has been funded by the PZU Foundation.
Since 1990, the Tadeusz Baird has been open to all Polish composers under the age of 35 on the day of its closure (previously it was intended only for graduates of the composition classes of state music colleges). The subject of the competition is different every year.
[Sources: polmic.pl, zpk.org.pl]