Authors
Composer and educator, one of the most recognisable figures in Polish contemporary music, Ptaszyńska graduated in composition and music theory from Warsaw’s State Higher School of Music (now the Chopin University of Music) and in percussion from the State Higher School of Music in Poznań (now the I.J. Paderewski Academy of Music). She also worked with Nadia Boulanger, Pierre Schaeffer, and Olivier Messiaen. She continued her composition studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music (USA), where she then began her teaching career, continued at many US universities (including the posts of composition professor at Bloomington’s Indiana University School of Music in 1997.
Full name: Radosław Rak, veterinary surgeon and writer, author of fantasy books. He graduated in veterinary medicine from the University of Life Sciences in Lublin and works in this profession. In his writings, combines real history, customs, and social life with fairy-tale elements, frequently drawing on myths and legend. As a novelist, Rak made his debut with the 2014, the book that brought him the greatest popularity is 'The Tale of the Serpent’s Heart, or a Second Word about Jakób Szela' (2019), for which he received the 2020 Nike Literary Award among other.
A composer of the young Poland movement, born on 18th September 1883 in Warsaw; he died on 1st January 1953 in Katowice. He received his first music lessons from his father, who was a pianist and a professor at Warsaw Conservatory. Having studied piano with Aleksander Michałowski and composition with Zygmunt Noskowski in Warsaw, Różycki made a successful debut as a composer with the symphonic scherzo Stańczyk (1903), which opened the way to studies with Engelbert Humperdinck at Berlin’s Königliche Akademie der Künste. It was in Berlin that he founded (together with Karol Szymanowski, Apolinary Szeluto, and Grzegorz Fitelberg) the Young Polish Composers’ Publishing Company (1905).
An artist combining acoustic tradition with electronic modernity; composer of, among others, the opera Madame Curie. Born on 20th October 1943 in Lwów (now Lviv), she graduated in sound engineering from the class of Antoni Karużas at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw
A philologist, author of prose and poetry, translator, professor of the human sciences. His special fields are literary theory as well as the history of British and American literatures. An eminent intellectual, ranking among the elite of Polish humanist authors, he has published texts in such periodicals as ‘Brulion’, ‘Odra’, ‘Res Publica Nowa’, and ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’, as well as regularly contributing to ‘Tygodnik Powszechny’.
Composer, lawyer, and educator, author of the concept of musical ‘aftersounds’. He studied law at the University of Łódź, music theory with Marta Szoka and composition with Zygmunt Krauze at the G. and K. Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź. He then took up postgraduate studies with Ivan Fedele at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome (2007–2010), and at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique in Paris (2011–2014).
A leading Polish jazz pianist, graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music (1987–1990, Oscar Peterson Prize winner), semi-finalist of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition in Washington, and member of the orchestra led by the legendary clarinettist Artie Shaw.
An outstanding composer and teacher. One of the leading composers of avant-garde music in Poland and Europe. He was born on 2nd March 1927 in Czechowice- Dziedzice, and died on 12th October 2001 in Berlin. From his childhood, Witold Szalonek was particularly sensitive to the sounds around him. In 1949, he took up studies with Wanda Chmielowska (piano), and later (after a hand injury) – with Bolesław Woytowicz (composition) at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice. He continued his education with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Witold Szalonek is considered one of the precursors of Polish sonorism.
