Katarzyna Smolarek

Saturday, November 15, 2025
7:30 pm
Sundin Music Hall
1531 Hewitt Avenue, St Paul

Kasia Smolarek is a Polish classical guitarist based in Berlin, Germany. She started playing classical guitar at the age of 8. Currently she is a student of the Konzertexamen degree at the UdK University in Berlin in the class of professor Marco Díaz-Tamayo. In 2022 she completed her Master’s degree with professor Marco Díaz-Tamayo at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria. In 2019 she performed together with Grammy Award winner David Russell as a part of the festival “José Tomás Villa de Petrer”. In the season 2018/19 she was a participant of the Eurostrings programme for talented young guitarists, which granted her an opportunity to perform at various guitar festivals around Europe. She is maintaining an active concert schedule and has so far performed in many European countries as well as in the USA, China, Vietnam, Chile, Brasil, México and Australia.

She has been mentioned in important newspapers worldwide, as well as in various guitar magazines, such as ‘Classical Guitar Magazine’, ‘The Six Strings Journal’ (USA) and ‘Sześć Strun Świata’ (Poland). In 2022 she recorded a live concert for a Brazilian TV station Sesc TV. She has been awarded over 20 prizes at national and international competitions.

In 2022 she was awarded with a DAAD scholarship for her studies in Germany. Since 2019 she has been a Savarez Artist.

Her most important prizes include:

I prize at the Memphis International Guitar Competition 2021 (USA)
I prize at the Gemona del Friulli International Guitar Competition 2021 (Italy)
I prize at the Wilson Centre Guitar Competition 2020 (USA)
I prize at the Rhode Island Guitar Festival Rising Star Guitar Competition 2020 (USA)
I prize at the Denver International Guitar Competition 2020 (USA)
I prize at the Amarante International Guitar Competition in 2019 (Portugal)
I prize at the Sanremo International Guitar Festival (Italy) in 2017
I prize at the  Sinaia Guitar Competition (Romania) in 2017
II prize at the Houston International Guitar Competition (USA) in 2021
I prize at the Sydney Eistedfodd Guitar Competition (Australia) in 2016
II prize at the Tampere International Guitar Competition (Finnland) in 2020
II prize at the Plovidiv Guitar Competition (Bulgaria) in 2020
II prize at the 51st Michele Pittaluga International Guitar Competition en Alessandria (Italy) in 2018
II prize at the  Concurso Musical Dr. Luis Sigall (Chile) in 2017
II prize at the Salzburg Guitar Fest Competition (Austria) in 2017
II prize at the International Young Talents Competition in Uppsala (Sweden) in 2018
II prize at the L. Luthier Contest in Bratislava (Slovakia) in 2016
III prize and Brouwer Prize at the International Guitar Competition José Tomás Villa de Petrer (Spain) in 2021