Professor Krzysztof Jabłoński

Krzysztof Jabłoński was born in Wrocław on 2 March 1965. He began to take piano lessons with Jan­ina Butor when he was six and con­tin­ued with this teacher for 12 years. From an early age he received schol­ar­ships from var­i­ous organ­i­sa­tions and asso­ci­a­tions (e.g., the F. Chopin Society).

He first played with an orches­tra when he was 12 years old. He has won many first prizes at national and inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tions, the first of which was the “Pre­mio Dino Ciani” com­pe­ti­tion in Milan in 1980 where he was the youngest par­tic­i­pant and came fifth. Nikita Mag­a­loff, chair­man of the jury, invited him to attend his mas­ter courses. Krzysztof Jaboński stud­ied at the K. Szy­manowski Music Acad­emy in Katow­ice under Pro­fes­sor Andrzej Jasiński from 1983 to 1986.

In 1985 Krzysztof Jabłoński won the third prize at the 11^th Inter­na­tional Chopin Com­pe­ti­tion in War­saw and from then on he received many con­cert pro­pos­als from all over the world. In 1988–1992 he won many prizes at pres­ti­gious inter­na­tional piano competitions:

• 2^nd Inter­na­tional Com­pe­ti­tion in Palm Beach (USA, 1988 — 1st prize and addi­tional prize for the best ren­der­ing of Chopin’s works),
• 10^th Inter­na­tional Rina Sala Gallo Com­pe­ti­tion in Monza (Italy, 1988 — 1^st prize),
• the Inter­na­tional GPA Com­pe­ti­tion in Dublin (Ire­land, 1988 — 2^nd prize),
• the 6^th Inter­na­tional A. Rubin­stein Com­pe­ti­tion in Tel-Aviv (Israel, 1988 — Gold Arthur Rubin­stein Medal),
• the Inter­na­tional Wal­ter Naum­burg Foun­da­tion Com­pe­ti­tion in New York (USA, 1992 — Spe­cial Jorge Bolet Award),
• the Inter­na­tional Esther Honens Com­pe­ti­tion in Cal­gary (Canada, 1992 — 2^nd prize).

The inten­sive con­cert activ­i­ties which Krzysztof Jabłoński began in 1985 con­tinue to this day. He plays in Europe, North and South Amer­ica, Mex­ico, Israel, Japan and South Korea. He has co-operated with such con­duc­tors as M. Bernardi, A. Boreyko, S. Comis­siona, J. Kasp­szyk, J. Krenz, J. Lopez-Cobos, G. Nowak, K. Pen­derecki, M. Pijarowski, W. Row­icki, M. Stern, T. Stru­gała, Y. Tezuka and R. Zollman.

Krzysztof Jabłoński is also very active in the field of cham­ber music. He has played with the Deseret String Quar­tet, the Israel Cham­ber Orches­tra String Quar­tet and the Shang­hai Quar­tet. He is also the founder of the “Chopin Duo” in which he has per­formed with cel­list Tomasz Strahl in Poland and abroad since 1999.

He has recorded for radio and tele­vi­sion in many coun­tries. He has recorded 16 com­pact discs in Japan, Ger­many and Poland. Some of these record­ings have also been pub­lished as Video Laser Discs or cas­settes. Krzysztof Jabłoński has recorded all Chopin’s Stud­ies, Pre­ludes and Impromp­tus as well as his Vari­a­tions and Krakowiak with Sin­fo­nia Varso­via con­ducted by J. Kasp­szyk for the National Edi­tion of F. Chopin’s Works (edited by Pro­fes­sor Jan Ekier).

At the turn of 1998 and 1998 Krzysztof Jabłoński was fre­quently invited to per­form at con­certs cel­e­brat­ing the 150^th anniver­sary of F. Chopin’s death. He played in Europe, North Amer­ica and Israel. He also played at the con­cert inau­gu­rat­ing the Chopin Year in Poland which took place at Teatr Wielki — National Opera in Warsaw.

In 1999–2003 Krzysztof Jabłoński co-operated with Teatr Wielki — National Opera in War­saw where he played dur­ing the bal­let spec­ta­cle Fortepi­anis­simo and per­formed the orig­i­nal ver­sion of C. Debussy’s lyri­cal drama Peleas and Melisande for piano and voices (April 2002).

In 1999 the Turk­ish Min­is­ter of Cul­ture pre­sented Krzysztof Jabłoński with an award of merit for pop­u­lar­is­ing Chopin’s music.

Krzysztof Jabłoński has been a mem­ber of the Board of the Inter­na­tional Chopin Soci­ety in Vienna since 2000.

Krzysztof Jabloński also teaches. He has con­ducted piano classes at the Music Acad­e­mies in Wrocław (1994–1995) and Katow­ice (1997–1999) and he has been a pro­fes­sor at the Fry­deryk Chopin Uni­ver­sity of Music in War­saw since 2004. He also con­ducts mas­ter courses and sits on the juries of inter­na­tional piano com­pe­ti­tions. In 2005 he was invited to sit on the Jury of the 15^th Inter­na­tional F. Chopin Piano Com­pe­ti­tion in Warsaw.

Krzysztof Jabłoński now lives in Cal­gary, Canada, where he set­tled in 1998.