musicologist; b. 30th June 1933 in Warsaw; d. 10th January 2019 in Józefów. She attended the State High School No. 1 in the piano and rhythmics class. In the years 1954-1963 she was a student at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Warsaw. She graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1967.
Izabella Grzenkowicz worked at Polish Radio since 1959. She started working in the Foreign Programme Team as the manager of the Music Catalogue. Two years later she moved to the Music Department of the Polish Artistic Agency "Pagart", where she worked until 1967. She wrote scripts for radio programmes and developed music for a number of radio plays and broadcasts. She was involved in the promotion of Polish music, and as a music editor she prepared and conducted a series of interviews with well-known Polish artists, among others with Stefan Kisielewski and Krzysztof Penderecki. As a music editor, she also collaborated with Polish Television (including the "Estrady Poetyckie" programme).
She wrote over 100 articles for the national and foreign press, including reviews, reports, interviews and essays. From 1961, she edited the chronicles of foreign exchange of artists, published reviews and a series of extensive interviews with Polish composers in the "Ruch Muzyczny" magazine. In the years 1967-1971 she was the head of the Polish Music Center at the Polish Music Council. In 1971 she became a member of the Theater and Music Department at the Ministry of Culture and Arts.
Since 1973 she was a member of the Musicologists' Section of the Polish Composers' Union.
In the years 1977-1981 she was the head of the music department of the "Kultura" weekly. She also cooperated with magazines: "Wychowanie Muzyczne", "Miesięcznik Literacki", "Polska" (foreign edition), "Uroda" (foreign edition), "Polish Perspectives" (published by the Polish Institute of International Affairs), "Soviet Music", " Litieraturnaja Gazieta "," Polish Music "and" Opus Musicum "(published in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic).
She prepared over seventy entries for the PWM Music Encyclopedia, as well as entries for the Dictionary of Polish musicians (Krakow, PWM, 1964-1967, under the name Dybowska). She was the co-author (editorial, commentary) of the book Conversations, Sketches, Reflections (PWM), which contains a series of conversations, full of deep reflection, with one of the most famous Polish composers of our time – Tadeusz Baird (1st ed. – 1982, 2nd ed. – 1998).
updated: 2019 (ac)
