KaroliNa (Naziemiec) and Robert Lewandowski at the PAHA Awards Ceremony in Denver, CO, January 7, 2017

Karolina Naziemiec

On behalf of PAHA Board and the 74th Annual Meeting organizers, we are thrilled to announce that the Awards Ceremony at the end of the Meeting in Denver, Colorado, will include two wonderful Polish musicians, Karolina Naziemiec, jazz singer and viola player, with Robert Lewandowski, pianist, in a program of jazz standards and improvisations.

The PAHA Awards will be presented on Saturday, January 7, 2017 at 7 p.m., at the Polish Club of Denver, located at 3121 W Alameda Ave, Denver, CO 80219.  The Registration Fee for the Awards Reception is $50 and you can register on PAHA Website's Registration page.  

The list of Awards and Prizes as well as the names of Awardees is as follows:

• The Oskar Halecki Prize - Prof. Mieczysław B. Biskupski, for his book The Most Dangerous German Agent in America (NIU Press, 2015).
• The Amicus Poloniae Award - Dr. Alvin Mark Fountain II and Brenda Bruce who co-founded the Paderewski Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2014 (paderewski-festival.org). 
• The Distinguished Service Award - Dr. Stephen Leahy of Shantou University, China 
• The Swastek Prize  for the Best Article -  Prof. Paweł Ziętara of Warsaw, Poland for “Troubles with ‘Mela’: A Polish American Reporter, the Secret Services of People’s Poland, and the FBI” (PAS 72, No 1, Spring 2015). 
• The Creative Arts Prize - Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, for her achievements as a poet, especially in her two books dedicated to Polish victims of WWII, Slicing the Bread (Finishing Line Press, 2014), and The Rainy Bread, (Moonrise Press, 2016). 
• The Skalny Civic Achievement Awards - Marta Alicja Swica of Minneapolis, MN; Tomasz Skotnicki, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland in Denver, CO; Katarzyna Zak, President of the Polish Club in Denver; Elizabeth Kanski, President of the Polish American Film Society, and Artistic Director of the Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles, Vladek Juszkiewicz
• The Graduate Student Research Paper Award -  Joanna Kulpińska, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland for her paper “Multigenerational Migration Chains of Families from Babica: An Attempt at Typology.” 
• The  Graduate Student/ Young Scholar Travel Grant - Aleksandra Kurowska-Susdorf, University of Gdańsk, Poland, for her paper “Creating Identity: Discussion around Kashubian and Polish Identity in Canada and Poland.”

The biographies of awardees have been published in the previous post on this blog.  The program of the Annual Meeting is also included there. 

KAROLINA NAZIEMIEC

KaroliNa (Naziemiec) is a Polish vocalist and a violist who has been training, teaching and performing in the United States since 2001. She was granted an artistic visa on the recommendation of the American Federation of Musicians, who cited her as being “a violist of extraordinary ability.” Ms. Naziemiec earned her Masters in viola performance from USC while studying concurrently at the Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles.

She has performed with many orchestras in Poland, Germany, France, Belgium, Japan, and USA and participated in numerous music festivals throughout the world. As a teacher Ms. Naziemiec was on the faculty at California State University, Northridge 2007-09 while also teaching at the Idyllwild Summer Festival as a viola coach. For the past ten years she has run a private studio and coached students in Santa Monica and the Malibu district.

She has recorded in scoring sessions at studios such as Warner Brothers, Fox, Sony and Paramount.
KaroliNa is an accomplished jazz vocalist who has performed in both the United States and Poland. Her artistry and talent can be heard on two beautiful CDs, Introduction, and her latest, Songs of Hope, dedicated to the heroes of World War II. Songs of Hope is receiving wonderful reviews and acknowledgement throughout the musical world. Learn more about KaroliNa at www.karolinanaziemiec.com.

ROBERT LEWANDOWSKI

Robert Lewandowski is a pianist and composer of modern contemporary music. His work has been performed by renowned ensembles around the world including the Metropole Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra. He's also known for his collaborations with Polish recording artists as both instrumentalist and writer.

Cover of KaroliNa's CD "Songs of Hope"