performers (M)

pianist and music tutor, b. 27th February 1933 in Cracow. He studied piano with Jan Hoffman and graduated at the State Higher School of Music in Cracow in 1962.

While still a student he took up teaching at the Fryderyk Chopin Music School in Cracow. Immediately after his graduation he joined the MW 2 Ensemble, becoming its member.

He held a scholarship of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1972), developing his skills of piano playing with Claude Helffer in Paris, and that with Aloys Kontarsky, as a fellow of the International Institute of Music in Darmstadt (Germany) during the Summer Courses of Contemporary Music (1974).

He performed in concerts as a soloist (also with the orchestras accompaniment) or as a chamber musician, most frequently with a repertoire of contemporary music in the MW 2 Ensemble, of which he was a member since its foundation (1962). Along with the MW 2 Ensemble he was the winner of the International Competition for Young Performers of Contemporary Music in Utrecht (The Netherlands, 1965) and was awarded the Honorary Medal of the Polish Composers' Union (1973) for his outstanding achievements in promoting Polish contemporary music. He has participated in more that 500 concerts and nearly 100 domestic and foreign festivals, among the others "Warsaw Autumn" (1963, 1964, 1966, 1972, 1978, 1981, 1997, 2017), Wrocławski Festiwal Polskiej Muzyki Współczesnej (1972, 1976, 1984, 2004), "Poznańska Wiosna Muzyczna" (1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1990), Muzički Biennale Zagreb (1967, 1973), Holland Festival (1973), Festival d'Avignon (1973), Festival of Arts Shiraz-Persepolis (Iran, 1976), Festival of Luzern (1980), festivals held by the International Society for Contemporary Music in different countries, Festival of Athens (1979), Primer Foro Internacional de la Música Nueva (Mexico, 1979), Multi-Art Festival (Seoul, South Korea – 2000), 17. Dresdner Tage der zeitgenossischen Musik (2003). He has to his credit dozens of world premieres of the works both Polish and foreign composers as well as a number of radio, television, record or CD and film recordings. As a lecturer he has taught at various contemporary music interpretation courses both in Poland and abroad, as well as has served on the jury of national and international musical competitions.

He has taught at the Academy of Music in Cracow since 1977 and at the Department of Interpretation of Contemporary Music (subsequently named into Department of Contemporary Music and Jazz) since its inception (i.e. since 1990), also as a professor since 1998 until the end of the academic year 2012/13.

He is a former political prisoner. At the early 1950s he was sentenced to imprisonment in pursuance of the ruling passed by the District Military Court in Cracow for his active involvement in political activities in an underground organization promoting national independence. Following the quashing of the said sentence in 1992, he has been granted the official status of a political persecution victim by the Institute of National Remembrance. Honoured by numerous awards (including the Golden Cross of Merit, Distinguished Cultural Activist, Veteran of the Struggle for Independence Badge, Cross of the Indomitable).