ABOUT

Born in 1998, Cezary Karwowski started playing the piano at 7 years of age. In 2020 he graduated with honors with a Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź, Poland in the piano class of Professor Robert Marat and the chamber music class of Professor Witold Holtz.

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Mr. Karwowski recently graduated with distinction from Baylor University with an Advanced Performer's Certificate in Piano and a Master’s degree in Piano Performance, where he studied under Dr. Bradley Bolen. He is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance degree at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor under Dr. Logan Skelton. 

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Mr. Karwowski has won a number of prizes at national and international piano competitions and chamber music competitions, including 1st prize at the National MTNA Young Artist Competition (2022), 2nd prize at the San Antonio Young Artist Tuesday Musical Club Piano Competition (2024), 1st prize at the Texas MTNA Young Artist Competition (2021), 1st prize and special prizes at the Gloria Artis International Piano Competition in Vienna (2019), 1st prize and special prizes in the 3rd Siberian International Chopin Competition in Tomsk (2016), an honorable mention at the 16th International Liszt Competition in Los Angeles (2021), 1st prizes in national piano competitions for young pianists in Konin, Rybnik, Lodz and Krakow, Poland (2016), 2nd prize in the Central Texas songSLAM in Waco (2023), and honorable mentions in the 20th Kiejstut Bacewicz International Chamber Music Competition in Łódź (2019). He has also recently been announced a finalist in the International Seattle Piano Competition. 

 

In 2022 he won the Baylor Concerto Competition as well as the Semper Pro Musica Solo Competition at Baylor and as the prize winner performed at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in May 2022.

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As a concerto soloist Mr. Karwowski has frequently performed with orchestras. In March 2023 he presented Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor with Baylor Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Miguel Harth-Bedoya.  In 2019 he won the Academy of Music in Lodz Concerto Competition and performed with the Academy of Music in Lodz Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Tomasz Bugaj. He has also collaborated with the ,,Polish Camerata’’ orchestra under the baton of Marek Głowacki and performed among others: Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C major K. 503, and Chopin’s Rondo a la Krakowiak. During the Piano Festival in Bolzano – Bozen in 2017, Mr. Karwowski won the concerto prize and performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C major K. 415 in the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Hall at the Claudio Monteverdi Conservatory of Music. 

 

In 2019 he took part in the project – ‘’Paderewski. Music of My Home’’ – a CD produced by the national Polish recording label – DUX, celebrating the 100th anniversary of Poland regaining its independence. The CD was recorded in the only preserved Paderewski’s manor in the world in Kasna Dolna, Poland. 

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Mr. Karwowski is a recipient of scholarships of the Prime Minister of Poland and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. He has recently been announced one of the recipients of ‘’Młoda Polska’’ (Young Poland) Scholarship that will allow him to buy his own grand piano. For two years in a row, in 2021 and 2022, he received the Roger L. Keyes Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in Piano at the Baylor School of Music.

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In 2022 Mr. Karwowski received the Adam’s Music House Fellowship and presented a lecture-recital on Francis Poulenc’s solo piano music at the KMFA radio in Austin. That year he was also invited by the Chopin Foundation of the United States to present a masterclass and teach local piano students at the Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale as well as present two recitals in Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale in the Miami area. 

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One of Cezary's main interests is the history of the pianists of the early 20th century, in particular, Polish-American pianists. In January 2024 he had the privilege of presenting on Josef Hofmann at the MTNA Collegiate Symposium at the University of Michigan.

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Mr. Karwowski is an active performer and has given concerts in Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Austria, Norway, Estonia, Lithuania, the United States and in many prestigious venues in Poland, such as the Frederic Chopin Museum in Warsaw or the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

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