persons' index (M)

composer and clarinettist, born 20th May 1971 in Oława. He graduated in 1997 from the Music Academy in Warsaw (now the Fryderyk Chopin Music University), where he had studied composition under Włodzimierz Kotoński. He participated in the ISCM Polish Section’s International Summer Courses for composers (1991, 1992, 1993) and the Gaudeamus Music Week in Amsterdam (1992), and attended lectures and workshops with composers such as Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Magnus Lindberg, Louis Andriessen, François-Bernard Mâche, and Michael Nyman.

In 1990, he won the 2nd prize in the Andrzej Krzanowski Competition for Composers. His 3 for 13 for 13 performers (1994), commissioned by the Polish Radio, received the 1st prize in the category of young composers' works in the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris in 1995. In 1996, his Epifora [Epiphora] for piano and tape (1996), another Polish Radio commission, was granted 1st prize in the category of works by young composers, as well as a recommendation in the general category, in the 4th International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music in Amsterdam.

Paweł Mykietyn founded Nonstrom, an ensemble in which he plays the clarinet and which has specialised in performances of contemporary music. The ensemble has a complement of four: a clarinet, a piano, a cello and a trombone. As a clarinettist, Mykietyn won the 1st prize in the Competition for Young Performers of 20th-Century Music organised by the International Society of Contemporary Music, the Polish Section, in 1995.

He has composed for soloists such as Elżbieta Chojnacka, Ewa Pobłocka, and Andrzej Bauer. He has cooperated with leading conductors including Jean-Paul Dessy, Jacek Kaspszyk, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Diego Masson, Wojciech Michniewski, and Reinbert de Leeuw. His has received commissions from Warsaw Autumn, Grand Theatre – National Opera in Warsaw as well as ensembles including Belcea Quartet, de Ereprijs, Icebreaker, and Kronos Quartet.

Between 1997 and 2001 he was music director of the StudioTheatre. Since 2008 he has been music director of the Nowy Theatre in Warsaw. He has composed music for all the of Krzysztof Warlikowski’s theatrical productions since 1996. His own selection of this output was released in 2011 on a CD  entitled "Mykietyn. Teatr". In 2015 he was awarded the Teatr monthly’s Special Prize for his opera The Magic Mountain and his theatre music.

He has authored music for many feature films, a.o.: Ojciec (part of the "Solidarność, Solidarność..." production), Ono, 33 sceny z życia and W imię... by Małgorzata Szumowska, Tatarak ind Wałęsa. Człowiek z nadziei by Andrzej Wajda, Essential Killing and 11 minut by Jerzy Skolimowski. In 2012, for his music for Essential Killing, he was awarded the prestigious SACEM Prix France Musique. For his music for films he was many times awarded at the Gdynia Film Festival.

In 2000 Paweł Mykietyn received the Passport Award of the Polityka weekly. His 3 for 13 was presented at the MIDEM Classique in Cannes. In 2008 he was the first recipient of the OPUS Public Media Award. In 2011 he was decorated with the Cavalier’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, in 2016 - the Polish Composers' Union Award  (for "remarkable, individual footstep in the panorama of Polish contemporary music, with emphasis on the opera The Magic Mountain") and the "Neptun 2016" award of the President of Gdańskm, in 2017 - Cyprian Kamil Norwid award (cathegory: music).

updated: September 2017 (wa), May 2018 (iz)

works

Paweł Mykietyn embarked on his spectacular career at a very young age, and from the very start he notched up numerous successes both in Poland and abroad. In 1993, still as Włodzimierz Kotoński’s composition student, he made his Warsaw Autumn debut with La strada. The success of this performance resulted in the composer obtaining his first Warsaw Autumn commission – for the work entitled Eine kleine Herbstmusik which, performed in 1995, proved to be one of the greatest events of the Festival. In the same year, his composition 3 for 13, commissioned by the Polish Radio, won the 1st prize in the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris, in the category of works by young composers. In 1996, Mykietyn received the 1st prize in the same category of works, as well as a recommendation in the general category, in the 4th International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music in Amsterdam, for his Epifora [Epiphora] for piano and tape (1996). The successive Warsaw Autumn festivals presented new works by Mykietyn: Piano Concerto in 1997, Commencement de siècle (1999), Shakespeare’s Sonnets (2000), and the opera Ignorant i szaleniec [The Ignoramus and the Madman] (2001).

Paweł Mykietyn’s music is impetuous, frequently even aggressive in character, and has a clear structure. The composer ostentatiously applies the major-minor harmonies, introducing tonal fragments interspersed with harmonically free sections. He also makes use of traditional melodic structures, transforming them in his own individual manner. Mykietyn could be described as a model postmodernist, deriving his inspiration as well as material from all the available sources without any inferiority complex. Composition is for him, to a large extent, the action of putting together ready-made puzzle pieces. Mykietyn’s music evokes many emotions. It is most admired by the younger audience, fascinated by powerful sound and sharp rhythms.

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