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Elżbieta Sikora's Jubilee
2013-10-20
Today, October 20, Elżbieta Sikora – one of the most original Polish composers - celebrates her 70th birthday. Elżbieta Sikora was born in Lwów on 20 October 1943. She completed studies in sound engineering at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw. In 1968-70 she studied electroacoustic music under Pierre Schaeffer and Francois Bayle at the Paris Groupe de Recherches Musicales. After her return to Warsaw, she took up composition studies with Tadeusz Baird and Zbigniew Rudziński. During her studies, together with Krzysztof Knittel and Wojciech Michniewski she formed the KEW composers' group, with which she toured in Poland, Sweden, Austria and West Germany. Since 1981 she has lived in France where she attended a computer music course at IRCAM and studied composition with Betsy Jolas. At present she is professor at the Conservatory in Angouleme, France, where she teaches electroacoustic music.A recipient of grants from the French government, the city of Mannheim and the Kosciuszko Foundation, she worked under John Chowning for several months at the Center for Computer Research for Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), at Stanford University.
She is the winner of the Young Composers' Circle of the Polish Composers' Union prize (1978, distinction for According to Pascal), Weber Competition in Dresden (1978, Second prize for a chamber opera Ariadna), Electroacoustic Music Competition in Bourges (1980, distinctions for The Waste Land and Letters to M.) and a competition for composers in Mannheim (1982, First prize for Guernica). In 1998 she received a Prix Magistere from the Bourges Festival of Electroacoustic Music. Sikora received two SACEM awards in 1994: Prix Pedagogique for Chant'Europe and Prix du Printemps for all of her works. In 1996 she was granted "Nouveau Talent Musique" prize for her opera L'Arrache-coeur in Paris. She also earned the Prix de la Partition Pédagogique and the Prix Stéphane Chapelier-Clergue-Gabriel-Marie, both from SACEM (both 1994). She was also awarded the Heidelberger Künstlerinnen-Preis (2000) and earned a special mention from the Académie du Disque Lyrique in Paris (2003, for a recent Le Chant du Monde recording), Pomorska Nagroda Artystyczna Gryf (2012), Splendor Gedanensis (2012), Sztorm Roku 2011. In 2013 Sikora received Annual Award of Związek Kompozytorów Polskich, special award of Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Gloria Artis award and Orphée du Prestige Lyrique de l'Europe.
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