Joanna Freszel
Joanna Freszel has held scholarships from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, the Pro Polonia Association, the International Singing Academy (ISA, 2012) and the Young Poland Programme (2014). In 2013, she received a Magna cum laude medal for the best graduate of the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music, where she was awarded the title of Doctor of Art (with distinction) in 2019. She also graduated from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, where she studied environmental protection.
In 2016, she received the Orphée d’Or de l’Académie du Disque Lyrique prize awarded for the most outstanding performance of a piece of contemporary music for her first ever album real life song (DUX), which was also nominated for a 2016 Fryderyk award in two categories, as well as being honoured with the Passport Award of the Polityka weekly the following year. She has performed Aleksander Nowak’s stage piece Drach. Dramma per musica, which won the Coryphaeus of Polish Music Award in 2020, while an album featuring the opera Ahat-ilī – Sister of Gods by the same composer, in which she appeared in the role of Inanna, garnered a Fryderyk in 2021.
She has recorded music for films and radio dramas. Her album Śpiewnik polski (featuring songs from the 20th and 21st centuries), recorded with the pianist Łukasz Chrzęszczyk, was released in 2020, while Akwarelle (with Grażyna Bacewicz’s complete songs and recorded with the pianist Bartłomiej Kominek) was released the following year.
The artist is the laureate of several other prizes, including in the following competitions: Halina Halska-Fijałkowska in Wrocław, Karol Szymanowski in Katowice, Jan, Edward and Józefina Reszko in Częstochowa, the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna, and the J:opera Voice Competition in Frankfurt (ISA, 2012). She was also a finalist of the “Giovan Battista Viotti” International Music Competition in Vercelli.
She has been invited to perform at numerous festivals in both her native Poland (Prawykonania in Katowice, Warsaw Autumn, Sacrum Profanum in Kraków, Musica Polonica Nova in Wrocław) and abroad (Aix-en-Provence, Contrechamps in Geneva, Melos-Etos in Bratislava). She has also collaborated with the Estonian National Opera in Tallin, the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera in Warsaw, and the Grand Theatre in Poznań.
Her repertoire of operatic roles includes Musetta in La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini, Vénus and Phrygienne in Dardanus by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Fiordiligi in Cosí fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Marguerite in Faust by Charles Gounod, Machine in Nici [Threads] by Krzysztof Wołek, Susanna in Figaro Gets a Divorce by Elena Langer, Psyche in Eros and Psyche by Ludomir Różycki, Ellenai in Anhelli by Dariusz Przybylski, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia by Gioacchino Rossini, and Hanna in The Haunted Manor by Stanisław Moniuszko.
[2022]