The Chair of Accordion

The Chair is responsible for accordion studies in music academies in: Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Kraków, Łódź, Poznań - Szczecin Branch, Warsaw and Wrocław. Its members are prominent Polish accordionists: pedagogues, scientists, concert accordionists and composers.

The Chair members are active on the national and international scale in the following areas:

• Teaching - the Chair coaches solo and chamber musicians. Many of its students are prize winners at national and international competitions. The most talented ones obtain scholarships which enable them to continue postgraduate studies at prestigious European and American universities of music.
• Research works on: the Polish accordion history and literature, methods of teaching, ways of tone shaping on the accordion, analysis of the accordion reads and sound disposition, collecting and cataloguing of the unique music scores and recordings of accordion music, biographies of people connected with the instrument, and organization of the music education system.
• Artistic performance - organisation of concerts, auditions , national and international competitions.
• Publishing activity of the numerous research works and music scores.
• The Chair also organises systematicly workshops for teachers including courses on teaching methods and interpretation seminars for students from Poland and abroad and supervises the teaching process in primary and secondary music schools.
• The Chair members hold responsible positions at various musical institutions where they act as presidents and deputy presidents, deans and deputy deans, headmasters of music schools, members of academic senate committees, members of the Council for Higher Education in the Arts and the Council for Higher University Education. They also till in the chair as experts of various committees for musical education, are members of national and international associations, hold various leading positions, i.e., at the Executive Committee of the Polish Accordionists' Association, act as chairmen of the International Commission for the Standardisation of Accordion Production in Castelfidardo (Italy), take part as members of the juries of national and international accordion competitions.

The Chair has its own computer unit which is used for publishing books, editing scores and experimenting in the application of the most up-to-date electronic appliances and digital techniques in accordion music. Students learn to use computer hardware and software, text editors, score editors and the internet.

Full Professors
Professor Jerzy Jurek (AMFC Warsaw)
Professor Jerzy Kaszuba (Academy of Music Bydgoszcz)
Professor Jerzy Łukasiewicz (AMFC Warsaw) - Head of the Chair
Professor Krzysztof Olczak (Akademy of Music Gdańsk)

Professor with second-degree qualification
Jerzy Madrawski (Świętokrzyska Academy Kielce)
Pawel Paluch (Academy of Music Cracow)

Assistant professors with second-degree qualifications
Klaudiusz Baran (AMFC Warsaw)
Zbigniew Ignaczewski (Academy of Music Łódź)
Elżieta Rosińska (Academy of Music Gdańsk)

Assistant professors with first-degree qualifications
Zbigniew Luc (Academy of Music in Wrocław)
Janusz Pater (Academy of Music Cracow)
Jerzy Siemak (Academy of Music Poznań, Szczecin Branch)
Elwira Śliwkiewicz-Cisak (UMCS Lublin)

Assistants
Piotr Dziubek (Academy of Music Wrocław)

Lecturers
Teresa Adamowicz-Kaszuba, D.A. (Academy of Music Poznań)

Technical staff
Czesław Rybicki, engineer (AMFC Warsaw)

Collaborators
Professor Włodzimierz Lech Puchnowski - professor emeritus
Adriana Kuwaczka, M.A. (State Primary and Secondary Music School Rybnik)
Andrzej Smolik, M.A. (State Primary and Secondary Music School Sanok)

Compiled by: The Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music