Joachim Olkuśnik,
composer and music journalist; b. 27th March 1927 in Kostrzyna; d. 18th December 2008 in Warsaw. He studied composition with Tadeusz Szeligowski at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw (degree in 1960).
In 1964, Olkuśnik received an honourable mention in the Grzegorz Fitelberg Competition for Composers for Spectrophonographies for women’s choir, 52 string instruments, 2 harps, 2 pianos and percussion (1964), and in 1980 – an honourable mention in the Competition for Composers in Łańcut for Music for flute, clarinet, celo and piano (1980). His compositions have been performed at numerous concerts and festivals in Poland and abroad, including in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, USSR, the United States.
In 1960-64 he wrote for musical and literary periodicals. In this period, together with other young composers (Benedykt Konowalski, Jan Fotek, Zbigniew Penherski, Romuald Twardowski) and poets (Andrzej Brycht, Stanisław Grochowiak, Ireneusz Iredyński, Roman Śliwonik), he founded the “Camerata” artistic group, which, in co-operation with the literary fortnightly “Współczesność” [“The Contemporary Times”] organised musical-literary evenings and attempted a synthesis of arts in the form of a rhapsodic theatre.
In 1964-70, Olkuśnik was an editor in the Central Music Editor’s Office of the Polish Radio in Warsaw (working, among others, on the series of broadcasts entitled “From old and recent times of Polish music”). He was a co-founder and (in 1974-86) editor-in-chief of the Authors’ Agency Music Publishers, which played a very important role in publishing and promoting contemporary compositions, particularly – of solo and chamber music.
In 1967-69 and 1975-77, Joachim Olkuśnik was a member of the Managing Board of the Polish Composers’ Union.
kompozycje
literatura wybrana
