Freszel, Joanna
She graduated from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music, where she studied with Jadwiga Rappé at the Vocal Department and completed the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Song Studies. She has received scholarships from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (thrice), the Pro Polonia, ISA2012, and Young Poland programmes, as well as the Magna cum Laude medal for the Fryderyk Chopin University’s best graduate (2013). She also graduated in conservation sciences from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. In 2019 she obtained her DMA degree. In 2019–23 she was an assistant vocal class tutor at the Fryderyk Chopin University in Warsaw and an assistant professor at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice. Since 2023 she has taught voice as well as 20th and 21st-century vocal music interpretations at the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Cracow.
Her accolades include the Polityka Passport Award (2017), Coryphaeus of Polish Music for Event of the Year (Aleksander Nowak’s Drach –dramma per musica, 2020), 1st Prize and three special awards in the 2nd Reszke Family Vocal Competition in Częstochowa, a special award in the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna, 1st Prize and special Frankfurt Opera award in J:opera Voice Competition ISA’12. She was also a finalist of the Gian Battista Viotti International Music Competition in Vercelli. She has regularly given performances at the Warsaw Autumn, Contrechamps (Geneva), Saaremaa Opera Days (Estonia), and Melos – Ethos (Bratislava).
Freszel’s operatic parts include Marguerite in Charles Gounod’s Faust (Estonian National Opera), the Machine in Krzysztof Wołek’s Nici(Threads, NFM Wrocław), Susanna in Elena Langer and David Pountney’s Figaro Gets a Divorce (Grand Theatre in Poznań), Psyche in Ludomir Różycki’s Eros and Psyche (Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera in Warsaw), Inanna in Aleksander Nowak’s ahat-ilī – Sister of Gods, Ellenai in Dariusz Przybylski’s Anhelli, Rosina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème, Vénus and Phrygienne in Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Dardanus, Fiordiligi in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte, Hanna in Stanisław Moniuszko’s The Haunted Manor, and Eve in Krzysztof Penderecki’s Paradise Lost.
A specialist in contemporary music performance, Freszel has premiered several dozen works, including Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater, Marko Nikodijevic’s Sadness Untitled, Oscar Bianchi’s Primordia Rerum, Uri Caine’s In Memoriam, and Eugeniusz Knapik’s Canticum Puerorum.
She has appeared at home and internationally with such orchestras as NOSPR Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Iuventus, Białystok Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra, the philharmonic orchestras of Cracow, Katowice, Kielce and Szczecin, OMN New Music Orchestra, AUKSO Chamber Orchestra of the City of Tychy, De Ereprijs, Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, and Camerata Viva Symphony Orchestra, under conductors such as Jerzy Maksymiuk, Gabriel Chmura, Jacek Kaspszyk, Marek Moś, Łukasz Borowicz, Szymon Bywalec, Tadeusz Strugała, Arturo Tamayo, Alexander Liebreich, and Michał Dworzyński.
2015 saw the release by DUX of her debut album real life song, featuring works written specifically for her by Miłosz Bembinow, Aleksander Kościów, Rafał Janiak, Agata Zubel, Sławomir Zamuszko, Andrzej Borzym Jr, Jagoda Szmytka, and Katarzyna Szwed. The album was nominated for the 2016 Fryderyk Awards in two categories and received the Orphée d’Or of the Académie du Disque Lyrique for the best recording of contemporary music. Her recording of Aleksander Nowak’s opera ahat-ilī – Sister of Gods to a libretto by Olga Tokarczuk won the 2021 Fryderyk Award. Freszel’s CD Śpiewnik polski / The Polish Songbook (Orphée Classics 2019, with pianist Łukasz Chrzęszczyk) was followed by Akwarelle (with Bartłomiej Kominek, the first complete release of songs by Grażyna Bacewicz, DUX 2021).