Current position: Chair of Aural Training: Professor Izabela Targonska
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Prof. Izabela Targonska
Prof. Izabela Targonska

Professor Izabela Targonska

She was born in Warsaw. She began to learn the piano when she was four. When she was six she began to study at a primary music school in Warsaw headed by Lech Miklaszewski, a great teacher and propagator of children's music. She graduated from the Fryderyk Chopin Primary Music School no. 2 in Warsaw, M. Dabrowska's piano class, in 1960. Professor Irena Szenic, who taught music theory, directly contributed to Izabela Targonska's later involvement with this field of music studies. Izabela Targonska decided to continue her piano studies at secondary music school and also to take a course in music theory which was available by that time. She graduated with honours from the F. Chopin Secondary Music School in 1965. At the same time she pursued her general education at R. Traugutt High School no. 45 in Warsaw where she graduated in 1964.
Izabela Targońska studied at the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw where she graduated from Department I, Theory of Music Unit in 1970 and graduated the Composition Unit in 1971. In 1971 she began to work at the Academy as an assistant at the Department of Composition, Conducting and Theory of Music whilst she continued to study at the Department of Piano, Harpsichord and Organ, the Instrumental Department and the Sound Engineering Department.

Prof. Izabela Targonska
Professor Izabela Targonska at a demonstration lesson for Hungarian professors, 1984
In 1993, after her first-degree postgraduate studies at the Cracow Academy of Music, she obtained her first-degree qualifications in Theory of Music for her thesis Musical Ear Training for Conductors and Sound Engineers, conferred by professor Ludwik Bielawski. She obtained her second-degree qualifications at that same college in 1994 for her thesis Programmed Method of Vocal Note Reading, Atonal System. She was now a fully qualified Music Theorist.
Throughout her research and teaching career she regularly co-operated with the Institute of Music Pedagogy and the Pedagogic Centre for Artistic Education in her work on music tests and syllabuses for music schools. She also conducted method classes for students at the Music Theory Department and demonstration lessons for primary and secondary music schools and for music college professors from Poland, Hungary, Columbia, Vietnam, Russia and France. In response to invitations from various academic centres in Poland she has given many lectures and conducted many charter seminars on ear training.
Similar seminars have also been organised by the Centre for Artistic Education at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.

Prof. Izabela Targonska
Professor Izabela Targonska presents a paper at a scientific session organised by the Intercollege Department of Ear Training at the AMFC on 3 December 2000
She is also asked to be a member committees which examine and certify teachers who want to advance in their career.
She has taken active part in all the symposia organised by the Intercollege Department of Ear Training at the AMFC which she herself helped to organise. She has been responsible for the publication of all the proceedings of these symposia at the Department of Ear Training and AMFC research bulletins.
She has written many academic textbooks and handbooks.

Izabela Targońska received the following awards for her research and teaching:



Major publications
    Handbooks

  1. Exercises in music memory and imagination. In: Z. Peret-Ziemiańska (ed.), Exercises in musical ear self-training. Warszawa, WSiP 1980.
  2. Exercises in musical ear training. Appendix with exercise and examination sheets for a three-year course. Warszawa, AMFC 1988.
  3. Manual for vocal note reading with the accompaniment of a sound recording. Warszawa, AMFC 1990 (for internal use at the ear training unit only).
  4. Musical ear training for conductors and sound engineers. Handbook with music recordings for the aural analysis of orchestra pieces. Part I - Symphonic dictation; Part II - Score correction. The recordings were produced at the AMFC Studio S1. First edition: manual plus 3 audio cassettes 1991; Second edition: Manual plus 3 CDs. Warszawa, AMFC 2001.
  5. Vocal note reading in the atonal system, programmed method. Self-instruction manual with music recordings for intonation training. First edition: manual plus 8 audio cassettes 1993; Second edition: manual plus 9 CDs. Warszawa, AMFC 2001.
  6. Foundations of error correction. Part I - teacher's manual; Part II - student's manual. Warszawa, AMFC 1998.
  7. Music memory training. Manual and 4 CDs for self-training in memory. Warszawa, CEA 1999. Recorded for AMFC by DUX 1998.
  8. Musical ear training in harmony. Manual and music recordings (in preparation).

    Articles:

  1. Musical ear training for conductors in the context of the requirements of contemporary music - article in the Professor Witold Rudzinski Jubilee Book. AMFC Research Bulletin no. 25, Warszawa.
  2. Musical ear training for sound engineers. Proceedings VII Symposium on Tonmeistering and Sound Engineering. Warszawa, AMFC 1995.
  3. On intonation and the intonation ear. AMFC Research Bulletin no. 41, Warszawa 1998.
  4. Music ear training at the Instrumental Department. Charter program (3-year course). Warszawa, AMFC 2000.