Professor Andrzej Rakowski, PhD Hab.

Professor Andrzej Rakowski, PhD Hab.

Andrzej Rakowski graduated from Warsaw University of Technology in acoustics (MSc, 1957) and from Warsaw State College of Music in music theory (MA with distinction, 1958). He spent a year on British Council scholarship in England (Durham University, 1958/59), studying physics of musical instruments and defended his doctoral dissertation (Initial transients in wind instruments) at Warsaw University of Technology (DSc, 1963). In the 70-ies his interest turned towards musicology and psychology of perception. He defended his second doctoral dissertation (Categorical perception of pitch in music) at the Institute of Musicology, Warsaw University ("upper PhD" - habilitacja, 1997), and was appointed professor in 1982.
In the years 1953-2001, until his retirement Andrzej Rakowski was working at Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music (previously Warsaw State College of Music), since 1968 as head of the Chair and Laboratory of Musical Acoustics. In 1981 he was elected head of the Solidarity Union at Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music and soon afterwards became the first free-elected president (rector) of that Academy (1981-87). In the years 1987-2003 he has been working as part-time professor at the Institute of Musicology of Warsaw University, and presently is working at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He has been lecturing as visiting professor and conducting research at several universities and research centres outside Chopin Academy, both in Poland and abroad, like Warsaw University of Technology, Washington University, Central Institute for the Deaf in St.Louis USA, King's College in Newcastle on Tyne and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has delivered invited lectures at more than twenty universities throughout the world, like Stanford and Harvard universities in USA or McGill University and University of Alberta in Canada. Currently at Chopin Academy of Music he is teaching courses on musical acoustics and conducting students' seminars on timbre solfege and selected subjects. More than 60 MA and MSc thesis were written under Professor Rakowski's supervision, he promoted 16 doctoral thesis, and 6 "upper PhD" thesis were prepared at his laboratory.
In 1952-53 Andrzej Rakowski worked as a sound engineer at Warsaw Documentary Film Studio, in 1956-58 as a sound director at Polish Recording Company (Polskie Nagrania), and in 1963-70 as an acoustic consultant at The Grand Theatre - National Opera in Warsaw. He is the author or co-author of several acoustic improvements in that theatre, including acoustic plans for the Chamber Hall. For many years he has been actively involved in studies aimed at improvement of the model of music education for children and youth in Poland. In 1982-84 he initiated an expert scientific report on the popularisation of music in Poland. In 1985-87 he was in charge of the Government Project "Music Education in Poland" and in 1995-97 he supervised the project by the Committee for Scientific Research on the model of music teacher in the Polish system of general education.

	Professor Andrzej Rakowski

Professor Rakowski has been active in research and cultural organisations. He served as a vice-president to the Polish Acoustical Society, in 1994 was elected to a highly selected organisation of Polish scientists, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and in 1996 was elected president of Acoustical Committee of that Academy. He is a member of Musicological Section of the Polish Union of Composers, a honorary member of Polish Acoustical Society and Polish Phonetic Association, and until 1989 served as a vice-president to the Polish Music Council. Presently he is active as head of the Experts' Team of PCM for Music Education. He is a fellow of Acoustical Society of America, member of European Acoustic Association, of International Society of Psychophysics, of International Society of Music Education, and of CATGUT Acoustical Society. He organised numerous international conferences and symposia on theory and acoustics of music, and psychophysiology of musical sound perception.
Most of Professor Rakowski's research activity was placed between acoustics and psychology of perception of music. His books were: Selected Topics on Acoustics (1959), Categorical Perception of Pitch in Music (1978), Basic Conditions for the Access of Children and Youth to Musical Culture (1984), Studies on Pitch and Timbre in Music (editor, 1999), Creating and Perceiving Musical Sound Sequences (editor, 2001). He presented more than 100 research reports to national and international scientific conferences and contributed more than 100 research articles to books and journals like Acustica, Acta Acustica, Archives of Acoustics, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, Musicae Scientiae, Muzyka, Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology, Contexts of Musicology, Quantitative Linguistics, Pholia Phoniatrica, Psychology of Music, Semiotical Studies, Speech and Language Technology, Recent Trends in Hearing Research, and The Humanities Association Review. In 1990 he was among the founding members of the European Society for Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM), and in the years 2000-2003 served as its president.
Andrzej Rakowski lives in Warsaw, is married to Magdalena Jakóbczyk-Rakowska, has one son and two daughters. His hobbies are: reading, touring, skiing and canoeing.

Compiled by: The Fryderyk Chopin University of Music