Krystian Zimerman Podcast Interview – Award-Winning Polish Pianist

Thanks to our friends at the USC Polish Music Center for passing along the link to a podcast interview with award-winning Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman.

Zimerman was in London last October to receive his seventh Gramophone Award. While in the UK, he recorded a podcast for Gramophone Magazine with James Jolly, touching upon such wide-ranging subjects as the music of Karol Szymanowski, conducting and retirement. Listen to the podcast here:

Born in 1956 in southern Poland, in 1975 at age 18 Zimerman won First Prize at the International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw—at the time, he was the youngest person ever to win the prestigious competition. He has gone on to enjoy an impressive international career as a pianist and conductor. Click here to learn more about Zimerman.

According to the USC Polish Music Center, citing Deutsche Grammophon, Zimerman’s most recent album – Karol Szymanowski: Piano Works – sees him return to his Polish roots to pay tribute to his compatriot on the 140th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Released on CD and digitally in September 2022, and on vinyl a month later, it features a series of richly varied solo works, ranging from some of the early Preludes Op. 1 and Variations on a Polish Folk Theme Op. 10 to Masques Op. 34, written during the First World War, and four of the Mazurkas Op. 50. Click here for the USC Polish Music Center article.