Stanisław Skrowaczewski

Stanislaw Pawel Stefan Jan Sebastian Skrowaczewski (; October 3, 1923 – February 21, 2017) was a Polish-American classical conductor and composer.

Biography Skrowaczewski was born in Lwów, Second Polish Republic (now Lviv, Ukraine). His parents were Paweł and Zofia (Karszniewicz) Skrowaczewski. His mother, an amateur pianist, began giving him lessons at the age of four, and he composed his first symphony by age eight. The Lwów Philharmonic performed one of his symphonies that same year. He gave his first piano recital at age eleven, and then, at age thirteen, he conducted and was the soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor.

His complete set of recordings of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner, made with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, has received much acclaim, as has his 2005/06 complete Beethoven symphony cycle with the orchestra. Another noted recording is his Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 with the London Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with soloist Gina Bachauer.

Skrowaczewski's Passacaglia Immaginaria, completed in 1995, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. Commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestral Association to honor the memory of Ken and Judy Dayton, it was premiered at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis in 1996.

His Chamber Concerto was commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in memory of Leopold Sipe, their first music director. Skrowaczewski received his second Pulitzer nomination in 1999 for his Concerto for Orchestra.

He received the Commander Order of the White Eagle, the highest order conferred by the Polish government, as well as the Gold Medal of the Mahler-Bruckner Society, the 1973 Ditson Conductor's Award, and the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award's third prize in 1978 for his Ricercari Notturni for saxophone and orchestra.

He was the father of Paul Sebastien, founder of electronica groups Psykosonik and Basic Pleasure Model, and of Nicholas Skrowaczewski. He lived in Wayzata, Minnesota, and died in St. Louis Park on February 21, 2017.

Frederick Harris, Jr., director of the MIT Wind Ensemble, wrote Skrowaczewski's official biography.

Recordings

Passacaglia Immaginaria/ Chamber Concerto/ Concerto for Clarinet in A & Orchestra – Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra; Albany TROY481 (2001); conducted by the composer Robert Schumann cello concerto in A minor/ Édouard Lalo cello concerto in D minor, Janos Starker, cello, London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by S. Skrowaczewski (1963 Philips A 04910 L)