Tomasz Daroch is the winner of the 8th Witold Lutosławski International Cello Competition in Warsaw. which was entered by over fifty musicians from 20 countries.

Daroch also received the Grand Prix for his brilliant interpretation of Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto during last night’s finals.

Chairman of the international jury, Mirosław Błaszczyk, confessed at a press conference that Daroch was not initially ranked among the candidates for the top place but his outstanding performance of the highly demanding concerto tipped the scale in his favour.

Twenty two year-old Daroch started studying the cello in his native town of Łodz at the age of seven. He is now a student of the Staatliche Hichschule fur Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Mannheim in Germany.

The Second Prize went to Magdalena Bojanowicz of Poland, the Third – to Hee-Young Lim of Korea and the Fourth to Lukas Stasevskij who represented Ukraine and Finland.

Three of the four prizewinners performed in the finals the concerto by the competition’s patron Witold Lutosławski, who died 17 years ago. Written in 1970 for the Russian virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich, it is one of the finest works for the cello in the 20th-century repertoire.

The Lutosławski competition is held every two years. It is a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions and of the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth. (mk)