Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship Announces Winners

Anna Duczmal-Mróz (Photo courtesy: Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio)

The Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship (TACF) was established by Marin Alsop in 2003 to promote gender diversity in music and support women pursuing conducting careers.

As the 2022-24 fellow, Anna Duczmal-Mróz will participate in intensive coaching and mentoring with Alsop as well as other music industry professionals. She will also receive the $20,000 TACF honorarium over the two years.

Starting out as a violinist, Duczmal-Mróz studied with Krzysztof Węgrzyn at Germany’s Hochschule fur Musik und Theater. Her penchant for conducting was discovered by Eiji Oue, who mentored her between 2001 and 2005. 

Since 2009, she has served as principal conductor of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio — an ensemble founded by her mother, conductor Agnieszka Duczmal in 1968. It was with this group that Duczmal-Mróz made her conducting debut in 2003.

She has also worked with other Polish orchestras including the National Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as soloists such as Wynton Marsalis, Avi Avital, Daniel Hope, Ingolf Wunder, and Kirill Troussov.

“I received the best award that I could ever dream of,” Duczmal-Mróz posted on her Facebook page. “I am a Fellow of Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship and will be mentored by legendary Marin Alsop.”

All six finalists for the 2022–24 fellowship received awards due to the high level of the applicants this year.

The two Associate Fellows are Spanish conductor and prize-winning pianist Irene Delgado-Jimenez and Swedish conductor Marie Rosenmir, who began conducting after a career as a professional organist, pianist, and singer.

The three additional award recipients are Panamanian-American conductor and Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Kalena Bovell; Spanish-born conductor and second-prize winner of the Blue Danube/Béla Bartók Opera Conducting Competition, Julia Cruz; and Polish native Anna Sułkowska-Migoń, who is Conductor-in-Residence of the Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra.

“The high artistic and technical skills of these women is truly inspiring,” said Alsop in the press release. “The general level of the 140 applicants was very impressive and gives me hope for a future of broader representation and opportunity for everyone.”

TACF have also collaborated with She’s Connected by AT&T to form the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship Mentoring Program. With their support, the TACF will be able to mentor 30 additional female conductors for the next three years.

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