2013-01-09

Witold Lutosławski, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Marta Ptaszyńska, Elżbieta Sikora, Zbigniew Bujarski i Zygmunt Krauze - distinguished composers associated with our publishing house, with anniversaries that fall this year. The 100th anniversary of Witold Lutosławski's birth will be celebrated in a number of venues throughout the country, led by the National Philharmonic, within the framework of the Lutosławski Year established by the Sejm of the Republic of Poland..

The year 2013 is also the anniversary of the birth of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (1933-2010). His work places him among the most original voices in contemporary music. Górecki's works repeatedly received awards at national and international competitions for composers - including first place for Ad Matrem at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers (1973). He received the State Award of the First Degree (1970), award of the Minister of Culture and the Arts (1965, 1969, 1973), the Polish Composers' Union Award (1970) and the Award of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1992 ). In 1993 he received an honorary doctorate from the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw, in 1994, an honorary doctorate from the University of Warsaw and was awarded by the Union of Poles in the USA the Gold Cross of the Legion of Honour. After 1994, he received honorary doctorates from the Catholic University in Washington, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Victoria University in Victoria, the University of Montreal (British Columbia, Canada). From 1975 to 1979 he was rector of the Academy of Music in Katowice, where he also taught composition. In his later years his Third Symphony, in a recording by Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta conducted by David Zinman (Nonesuch, 1993), was an unprecedented success in the international recording market, breaking records previously only achieved in the field of pop music.

Two outstanding lady composers will celebrate their 70th birthdays this year - Marta Ptaszyńska and Elżbieta Sikora.
Marta Ptaszyńska (born 1943) has won many prestigious awards in the field of composition, such as awards from the Simon J.  Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers Prize in Paris, multiple ASCAP awards, and many others. In 1995 she was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. Her works have been performed at numerous international music festivals such as the ISCM World Music Days, Festival of Contemporary Music in Huddersfield, Salzburg Festival, Warsaw Autumn, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Gulbenkian Foundation Festival of New Music, the Prix Futura in Berlin. Since 1998 she has been a professor of composition at the University of Chicago.
The composer's most recent works published by PWM are:
Kochankowie z klasztoru Valldemosa (2010)
Blue Line na marimbę solo (2011)

Elżbieta Sikora (born 1943) has received many music awards for her compositional achievements such as second prize in the Weber Competition  in Dresden for the chamber opera Ariadna (1978), in 1980, distinction at the Electroacoustic Music Competition in Bourges for The Waste Land, and Letters to M., in 1982 the first prize in a competition for composers in Mannheim for the work Guernica, hommage a Pablo Picasso and, in 1999, Prix Magistere at the Festival of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges, and in 1994 two SACEM awards: Prix de la Partition Pédagogique for Chant' Europe and Prix du Printemps for her lifetime work, in 1996 the prize of the French Société des Auteurs et Dramatiques Composers (SACD) in Paris for the opera L 'Arrache-coeur and the 2000 Heidelberger-Künstlerinnen-Preis. In 2003, a  recording of her works by Le Chant du Monde received a special award from the Académie du Disque Lyrique in Paris. In 1997 she was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland , and in 2004 was appointed Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France.
The composer's most recent work published by PWM is the opera Madame Curie (2011).
Additionally, in recent months, Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne has signed an agreement to become her major publisher. Her present compositional presence in  PWM's catalogue includes numerous works for orchestra, chamber, solo, vocal and vocal-instrumental ensembles.

Zbigniew Bujarski, on the other hand, will celebrate his 80th birthday this year. For his rich achievements in the field of composition he has received numerous awards, including the CPU Award for the piece "Strefy" (1961) and at the Grzegorz Fitelberg Composition Competition for the piece "Kinoth". In 1967, his composition "Contraria" received honourable mention at the  UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in Paris, and in 1978 the work "Musica domestica” received second prize there. Z. Bujarski has twice received the award from the Minister of Culture and Arts II degree (1979, 1987), the Polish Composers Union Award (1984), the award of the City of Kraków (1984), and the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation award (1991). Currently, he teaches composition at the Academy of Music in Kraków, where in the years 1978 to 1986 he was dean of the Faculty of Composition, Conducting and Theory of Music, and since 1992 holds the position of professor.

This September, Zygmunt Krauze will celebrate his 75th birthday. This versatile artist and composer, is a very interesting figure in the contemporary music scene, not only the Polish scene, but most of all, the world scene; a composer and pianist, who is invariably a symbol of innovation and experimentation, bold proposals and surprising solutions, all included in an original artistic frame. In 1967, he founded the „Warsztat Muzyczny” ensemble,  specialising in the performance of the newest music, for whom about 100 composers have written works. In 1974-1975 he was in Berlin as artist in residence at the invitation of the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst). In 1987 he was elected (at the congress in Frankfurt) President of the International Society for Contemporary Music. In recognition of his services in 1975, he was awarded the Silver Cross of Merit of the People's Republic of Poland, in 1984, in France, the title of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 1988 the annual PCU prize, the 1989 prize of the Ministry of Culture and the Arts, in 2005, the Annual Award of the Minister of Culture. In 2012 he was awarded the Koryfeusz Muzyki Polskiej award in the category of  Personality of the Year.

Zygmunt Krauze's most recent works published by PWM are:
Pułapka - opera in one act (2011)
Canzona for instrumental ensemble (2011)
Pour El for solo harpsichord (2011)