On August 19, 2018 Agata Zubel received the European Composer's Award for her latest Fireworks composition, which premiered in Warsaw, Berlin and London.
The work for the great symphony orchestra was commissioned jointly by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the "Polska Music" and "Polska 100" programmes on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Poland's independence, and by EUYO – The European Union Youth Orchestra as part of the "2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage" programme.
The work premiered in Warsaw on August 13, 2018 during the "Chopin and his Europe" festival. The next day, the composition was performed at the Berlin Konzerthaus, and on August 19 it was presented at the Royal Albert Hall in London during the famous BBC Proms festival.
The Europäischer Komponistenpreis is an award set up by the mayor of Berlin for the most interesting festival premiere taking place in Germany or in the world. The Jury of the European Composers' Prize led by Manolis Vlitakis, composer and music theoretician, visiting professor at the University of the Arts, emphasized in the laudation: "Agata Zubel shows immense power of imagination and very high compositional level, and also reflects the current state of the art of composition. Not only with a perceptible passion, but also very skillfully able to unleash the 'demonic' powers of the symphony orchestra ".
The publisher of the composition is Polish Music Publishing House (PWM). Director and Editor-in-Chief of PWM Daniel Cichy collected the award on behalf of the composer.