Cracow School of Composition
Tied to the Academy of Music in Cracow is a group of eminent contemporary Polish
composers, who form a strong community exceeding its compass and influencing Polish music
culture outside the frame of the school. The high standing of this community renders as fact
the conferring of the title Cracow School of Composition.
It is diffcult to pass a general classification enabling the categorizing of the group of Cracow
composers to one according to the definition of music poetics:
we have here to deal with a complicated, constantly evolving organism.
Beyond the variety of aesthetic attitudes and individual aspirations to realize ones own style,
the Cracow School of Composition is distinguished by high professionalism, researching truths
and freedom in art and the desire to impart working-mysteries to their successors.
To the body of composers currently associated with the Academy of Music belong:
Zbigniew Bujarski (Contraria, Similis Greco, Musica domestica, Concerto per archi I,
Concerto per archi II, Gardens), Tadeusz Machl (Organ concertos, String Quartets, Requiem),
Krystyna Moszumanska-Nazar (Music for Strings, Rapsod I, Rapsod II, Fresco I, Fresco II,
Polish Madonnas, String Quartets, Dialogues), Krzysztof Penderecki (Psalms of David,
Threnody to the victims of Hiroshima, Polymorphia, Fluorescence, St. Luke Passion, Utrenia, Magnificat,
Polish Requiem, The Devils of Loudun, Paradise Lost, Black Mask, King Ubu),
Boguslaw Schaeffer (TIS MW2, Audiences I-V, Haraklitiana, Missa elettronica, Piano Concerto No 3),
Marek Stachowski (Divertimento, Choreia, From the Book of Night, String Quartets, Birds, Madrigali
del'estate), Adam Walacinski(Lyrics of a Sleeping Man, Diachromia, Drama e burla, Canzona I, Canzona II).
The work of the above-mentioned composers has frequently been honoured in national
and international competitions, determining a classic repetoire of contemporary Polish music.
In this Cracow community of composers, a younger generation is increasingly making its
presence felt: Marek Choloniewski, Magdalena Dlugosz, Katarzyna Piatek, Jozef Rychlik, Anna Zawadzka.
Since 1989, the Cracow branch of the Society for Polish Composers in cooperation with the
Academy, has been organizing "Cracow Composers Music Days" as a platform for introducing
and promoting the Cracow School of Composition.
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