Bio

I currently try to pass on the experience I gained in organizing composers’ concerts while being a student at the Frederic Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, and at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt-Am-Main to other students.

 

In the years 2005-2012 I was a member of the Young Circle of Polish Composers' Union; from 2006 to 2008 I was its secretary; from 2008 to 2012 I became its director, whose responsibilities were mainly organizing concerts to accompany the festival Warszawska Jesień.  Music by members of the Circle was presented at these events.  From 2006 to 2008 and in 2011 I organized my own projects featuring organ music, at which I performed several dozen pieces for solo organ or for chamber ensemble with organ for the first time live.  Most of these compositions ended up on recordings entitled Kroniki Dźwiękowe Warszawskiej Jesieni.  This organizing of concerts introduced me to the tricks of the concert production and recordings trade, broadened the scope of my activity as composer by promoting the music of young composers, and enabled me to get to know the musical environment dealing with new music in Poland.  I played the role of juror twice in the Zygmunt Mycielski Composers’ Competition, once in 2013 and once in 2014, commissioned by the Circle of Young Composers.
In my term of office from 2014 to 2016, I was a member of the Board of Young Polish Composers.  I have been a member of the Warsaw branch of the Board of Young Polish Composers since 2014.
I have been active (member of the Board in 2008-2010, 2014-2016) in the Polish Society of Contemporary Music (Polish Section of the International Society of Contemporary Music) since 2007, where I organized the Kazimierz Serocki International Competition for Composers (2008), and I have been the director of The 20th and 21st Century Music Competition for Young Performers in Radziejowice/Warsaw since 2010 – in the 2010, 2012, 2014 seasons, and an upcoming 2016 season.  This competition, which is already of outstanding merit, is a sensation on the Polish music scene; designed for the performance of the latest music, it contributes to the popularization of this art among students of secondary schools, as well as students of institutions of higher learning.  Thanks to the Polish Department of the International Society of Modern Music, I was a delegate during the World Music Days in Sweden (2009).
As a member of the Society of Authors called ZAiKS, I was a delegate at the VIP Members' Meetings in the years 2010 and 2014.  The present legal problems dealing with a rapidly increasing level of technology force artists to take an appropriate stance regarding their copyrights and the royalties they deserve.  My work at the Board entails making the right decisions concerning the copyright protection of composers of artistic music.
I take an active part in the artistic and academic life at the Frederic Chopin University of Music, where since 2012 I have been vice-dean of the Department of Composition, Conducting, and Music Theory.  My didactic activity is not limited to teaching classes solely, but I also organize conferences and workshops for composers.  In February 2014 I have been chairman of the two-day academic conference Polish Symphonic and Concert Music of the 21st Century; in November 2015 I organized the conference Polish Chamber Music of the 21st Century, which culminated in a concert.  An important didactic element is presenting students with new phenomena in art and music.  For this reason I have invited the following artists to hold workshops with concerts for composers:  the flutist Rafał Żółkoś – The Flute in Contemporary Compositions; the violoncellist Friedrich Gauwerky – Modern Cello Performance Techniques; the composer Lowell Liebermann – a five-day workshop for composers and a concert of his chamber works.  The following artists have held workshops for students organized by me:  the opera director Margo Zalite – The Opera Director in Contemporary Musical Theatre; an interpreter of contemporary music, the soprano Angele Chemin – New Vocal Techniques and Presentation of Music; music theorist Faye-Ellen Silverman – The Latest Works by American Composers; the pianist Deirdre o'Donohue – Texture in Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas; pianist Metin Ülkü – The Newest Turkish Piano Music; composers Jagoda Szmytka, Elmar Lampson, Manuel Martínez Burgos, Hasan Ucarsu, Daniel Moreira, Vladimir Scolnic.  In the academic year 2013/2014 there also took place six lectures organized by me at UMFC in collaboration with the Warsaw Technical University (organized in part by the Society of Polish Engineers).  The subject of these lectures was the connection between art and science.  For students of composition I have also organized workshops concerning film music and sound, which were led by the PhD student Jose Enrique Iglesias Vigil from the Film School in Łódź.

    I was an active participant in the following :  in the discussion panel at the Interdisciplinary Polish Academic Conference Opera Today: Inspirations – Directions – Borders, organized by the Academic Student Circle of Musicology at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow in 2012; in international master classes for composers called matrix12, organized by the Studio of Experimental Music in Freiburg in 2012; in the discussion panel Newest Music in Poland – Problems and Challenges during the 41st Musicological Conference of the Polish Composers' Union and the 10th National Frederic Chopin Institute Conference in Radziejowice, 2012; in international master classes dealing with the interpretation of the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen in Kuerten, Germany in 2013; in the conference Body, Rhythm, Emotion dedicated to issues of contemporary percussion at UMFC in Warsaw in 2013; in the Fourth Macro-regional Methodical Conference for teachers of basic music subjects and rhythm under the patronage of the Center for Artistic Education in the Wielkopolski Region in Konin in 2013.  I was a moderator at the International Academic-Artistic Conference “Andrzej Panufnik and his vision of music” at UMFC in Warsaw in 2014, where Lady Camilla Panufnik, Professor Emeritus Adrian Thomas, and Professor Emeritus Nigel Osborne participated.  In 2015 at UMFC I delivered an essay at the Ritual and Transgression in the Art of Percussion conference and took an active part as a performer (Hammond organ) at the NEW PURPOSE OF MUSIC conference, where improvisation was the subject.  In January 2016 I delivered an essay at the Polish Conference Polish choral-percussive music at the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz.