News Release: Stanislaw Skrowaczewski is McKnight Distinguished Artist for 2004
June 30, 2004 - Minnesota Orchestra Conductor Laureate and world-renowned composer to receive The McKnight Foundation's Distinguished Artist Award for 2004.
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (scrov-a-ches-ke), an internationally renowned orchestra conductor and composer, will receive The McKnight Foundation's Distinguished Artist Award for 2004. The $40,000 award is given each year to a working artist whose long career has made a significant impact on the arts in Minnesota and beyond.
Skrowaczewski is best known in the Twin Cities as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, a position he held from 1960 to 1979, a tenure equaled only by founding conductor Emil Oberhoffer. He was a tireless crusader for a new orchestral hall in downtown Minneapolis, and played a key role, along with orchestra benefactor and board executive Kenneth N. Dayton, in the development of the current Orchestra Hall, which opened in October 1974. "Stan personally supervised the acoustics to ensure that it is one of the great listening spaces of the country and indeed the world," wrote Dayton, who died in 2003.
"Stanislaw Skrowaczewski is one of the world's premier conductors and composers," says Noa Staryk, chair of The McKnight Foundation. "He demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to Minnesota as music director of the Minnesota Orchestranot only through his relentless dedication to quality, but also by making the orchestra available to communities in Greater Minnesota. In addition, he interrupted his own international opportunities to help the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra by accepting the post of principal conductor following Pinchas Zukerman's departure. Maestro Skrowaczewski also is widely recognized for his approachability and encouragement of young composers and musicians. Even when he was travelling internationally, he was very accessible to local young musicians who wanted his advice."
Skrowaczewski was born in Poland in 1923 and began playing the piano and violin at age four. He composed his first symphonic work at age seven and gave his first public recital at age 11. Two years later, he performed and conducted Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto. A hand injury during World War II ended his prospects for a keyboard career and forced the talented young man to concentrate on conducting and composing. He has won many awards for composing and conducting, including two Pulitzer Prize nominationsone as recent as 1999 for his Concerto for Orchestra, which was commissioned and premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra. He has also won major international awards, starting with the Polish Szymanowski Competition (for composers) in 1947 and the International Competition for Conductors in Rome in 1956.
Skrowaczewski's interpretations of the Bruckner Symphonies have earned him the Gold Medal of the Mahler-Bruckner Society, and his programming of contemporary music while conducting the Minnesota Orchestra resulted in five ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) Awards. After his stint with the Minnesota Orchestra, he was principal conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, England, giving concerts throughout Great Britain and leading tours to the United States and throughout Europe. He has recorded an extensive repertoire for RCA, Phillips, CBS, EMI/Angel, Mercury, Vox, and others.
Skrowaczewski and his wife Krystyna live in Wayzata. They have two grown children.
The Distinguished Artist Award will be presented formally at a ceremony this autumn. Skrowaczewski was selected by a four-person panel, which considered more than 85 nominated artists this year. The previous recipients are composer Dominick Argento (1998), ceramic artist Warren MacKenzie (1999), writer and translator Robert Bly (2000), choral composer, arranger and conductor Dale Warland (2001), editor and publisher Emilie Buchwald (2002), and painter Mike Lynch (2003).