Krakow FMF 2025 – Young Talent Award – WINNERS

 

https://fmf.fm/news/381

 

We are announcing the winners of the FMF Young Talent Award!

 

The winner of the 13^th edition of the international competition for young film musicians is Mikołaj Gąsiewski. This Polish composer handled most brilliantly the task of composing the score for one of the scenes from the film I Am: Celine Dion. We will listen to his piece at the Krakow Film Music Festival on 31^st May.

 

The FMF Young Talent Award is a competition addressed to composers under the age of 35 that is held as part of the Krakow Film Music Festival. Its aim is to present the achievements of young artists to a wide audience and industry representatives. The participants’ works will be assessed by an international jury consisting of composers, performers and other persons connected with the film score industry. The sessions of the jury were chaired by Miriam Cutler – an Emmy-nominated composer specialising in documentaries, as well as producer, educator and co-founder of the Alliance for Women Film Composers.

 

The first place in the competition was won by Pole Mikołaj Gąsiewski. The jury decided that he tackled most brilliantly the task of creating music for an excerpt from I Am: Celine Dion – a documentary directed by Irene Taylor. Italian Davide Sambrotta took second place, and Colombian Zoe Martinez Salas took third place. The finalists of the competition also included: Andrzej Ojczenasz, Emanuela Izabela Vieriu, Karina Rivero, Leo Puentes, Theodore Vidal, Szymon Szczot, Katarzyna Ogrodnik, Johann Grillenbeck and Luis Miguel Bonilla Martinez.

 

Mikołaj Gąsiewski is a graduate of the Arthur Rubinstein State Complex of Music Schools in Bydgoszcz and the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań. He graduated with honours. He is an arranger, a pianist and the music director of the Polish Film Music Orchestra and Monika Lewczuk’s ensemble. He has co-operated, among others, with the Polish Television, the Polish Theatre in Bydgoszcz, the Baj Pomorski Theatre in Toruń, the Polish Radio PiK Odeon salon orchestra, the CoOperate orchestra from Poznań, Kapitan Nemo, Roksana Węgiel, Adam Sztaba Orchestra, Beata Kozidrak, Łukasz Zagrobelny and the Tre Voci formation. He works as a lecturer at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. He and his Mikołaj Gąsiewski Orchestra played the first concert of The Gentlemen tour in 2020.

 

Gąsiewski’s winning piece will be presented on Saturday 31^st May at the ICE Krakow Congress Centre during the FMF International Gala event. An additional prize for the winner of the competition will be a Bettermaker Stereo Passive Equalizer device donated by a co-organiser of the competition – the Bettermaker brand, which creates high-end studio equipment for engineers and music producers. The twelve finalists of the FMF Young Talent Award will also receive a set of professional plug-ins from Bettermaker, as well as the opportunity to participate in special workshops for composers led by specialists from the film music industry (such as Miriam Cutler, John Konsolakis, Magdalena Piotrowska, Irene Taylor, Mateusz Bień, Jan Stokłosa, Marek Walaszek and Szymon Piotrowski) at the Krzysztof Penderecki European Music Centre in Lusławice. Moreover, participants in workshops will be able to record their compositions during a professional recording session with the Stokłosa Collective Orchestra and sound directors from Air Studios.

 

he previous winners of the FMF Young Talent Award include: Matthijs Kieboom (2013), Jan Sanejko (2014), Antonio Di Iorio (2015), Joep Sporck (2016), Paweł Górniak (2017), Marco Valerio Antonini (2018), Hubert Walkowski (2019), Henrik Lindström (2020), Yeakun Yoo (2021), Ignacy Wojciechowski (2022), Szymon Sutor (2023) and Hernan Castro Fioravanti (2024).

 

Krakow’s FMF is one of the most recognised events in the world of film music. Since 2008, the festival has been organised by the City of Krakow, the Krakow Festival Office and RMF Classic. The biggest event of this year’s edition will be a unique screening of the film La La Land scheduled for Friday 30^th May at TAURON Arena Krakow. The Oscar-winning soundtrack will be performed live by the Beethoven Academy Orchestra and the Krakow Philharmonic Choir. The musicians will be conducted by the composer – Justin Hurwitz.