Assistant Professor Maria Pokrzywińska, DA Hab.

Com­poser, the­o­reti­cian of music, pedagogue.

In the period of 1975–84 she stud­ied The­ory of Music (1975–80) and Com­po­si­tion in class of Mar­ian Borkowski (1979–84), both at the FCAM in War­saw, obtain­ing diplo­mas with hon­ours. Since 1987 she has been active as a ped­a­gogue at the Warsaw’s FCAM (now the Fry­deryk Chopin Uni­ver­sity of Music), where she is per­ma­nently con­nected with Depart­ment of Com­po­si­tion, Con­duct­ing and The­ory of Music. At first she was employed as Assis­tant, then as Senior Assis­tant (since 1989), and in 1995 she obtained qual­i­fi­ca­tions of the 1^st degree in com­po­si­tion. Since 1996 she has worked as an adi­unkt (Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor) at the Chair of Com­po­si­tion, where she teaches Har­mony, Har­mony with Exer­cises, Propaedeu­tics of con­duct­ing and Orches­tra­tion. In the period of 1996–2000 she held the func­tion of the Super­vi­sor of the Aca­d­e­mic, Con­duct­ing and The­ory of Music Cir­cle of Stu­dents of the Depart­ment of Com­po­si­tion, ini­ti­at­ing and com­plet­ing numer­ous valu­able under­tak­ings, such as: organ­is­ing Days of Depart­ment 1, organ­is­ing open lec­tures, trips of stu­dents of Depart­ment 1 to study ses­sions and sem­i­nars. Since 1992 she has edited writ­ten tasks for entrance exams in Har­mony (Depart­ment 1, Sec­tion of Com­po­si­tion), she also gives lec­tures in Har­mony dur­ing prepa­ra­tion courses to the FCUM. In the period of 1995–1998 she had a func­tion of Con­sul­tant at the Depart­ment of Artis­tic Edu­ca­tion, Min­istry of Cul­ture and Art. As part of her teach­ing activ­ity she coop­er­ated with the Car­di­nal Ste­fan Wyszyński Unniver­sity, run­ning lec­tures and classes in Har­mony at the Musi­col­ogy spe­cialty (2000–2002).

She is a win­ner of the 2^nd Prize (the 1^st Prize was not awarded) at the 28^th All-Poland Com­pe­ti­tion for Young Com­posers for the piece Rolling for wind quin­tet and 4 string quar­tets (War­saw, 25^th May 1986, organ­iser of the com­pe­ti­tion – The Main Board of the Pol­ish Com­posers’ Union). In 2001 the CD the 21^st Cen­tury Pol­ish Cho­ral Music (Acte Préa­la­ble 0100) with her work Can­tate Domino was nom­i­nated to the “Fry­deryk 2001”, Phono­graphic Indus­try Award.

She was also awarded in two other areas of her activ­ity: the 3^rd Prize at the 4^th All-Poland Com­pe­ti­tion of Master’s The­ses (Gdańsk 1984) for her the­sis Dyso­nan­so­wość struk­tur IV rzędu a roz­kład ele­men­tów ako­rdu, and the FCAM Rector’s Award (of the 2^nd degree) for spe­cial ped­a­gog­i­cal achieve­ments (1996).

Her com­po­si­tions have been per­formed in Poland and abroad, on such fes­ti­vals and events as: War­saw Autumn, War­saw Music Meet­ings, Święta Lipka Music Evenings, the All-Poland Clar­inet Fes­ti­val in Piotrków Try­bunal­ski, Zamość Music Days, “The Young Pol­ish Music” in Szczecin, the Inter­na­tional Forum of New Music, Lab­o­ra­tory of Con­tem­po­rary Cham­ber Music, Lab­o­ra­tory of Con­tem­po­rary Music, the 2^nd Witold Lutosławski Forum, Inter­na­tional Organ Fes­ti­val in Kosza­lin, “Organ Con­ver­sato­rium” in Leg­nica, Fes­ti­val “Gaude Mater” in Częs­to­chowa, War­saw Choirs’ Meet­ings “Can­tate Domino” in War­saw, “Cecyli­ada” in Police, the FCUM’s Chair of Com­po­si­tion con­certs, Com­posers’ Sym­po­siums at the FCUM; as well as abroad, e.g.: in Great Britain (Fes­ti­val “Pol­ish Reali­ties” in Glas­gow), Italy (the 30^th “Pueri Can­to­res” Con­gress in Rome), Ger­many, Hun­gary, Fin­land, the USA, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

Her aca­d­e­mic achieve­ments are numer­ous speeches and lec­tures devoted to con­tem­po­rary music and com­po­si­tion tech­nique issues. The area of her spe­cial inter­est is har­mony. She is an author of a text­book for prac­ti­cal har­mony: Pro­gre­sje. Zbiór ćwiczeń har­mo­nicz­nych (Cen­tre of Artis­tic Edu­ca­tion [CEA], 2004). Also Her numer­ous lec­tures, speeches, demon­stra­tions and open les sons pre­sented at study ses­sion, sem­i­nars and courses at the Cen­tre of Artis­tic Edu­ca­tion were also devoted to har­mony. The most impor­tant ones among them are: Har­mo­nika Oli­viera Mes­sia­ena (a CEA course for Har­mony teach­ers, Olsz­tyn 1995), “Vingt Leçons d’Harmonie” Oli­viera Mes­sia­ena (the 36^th Ses­sion “Musica Mod­erna”, Łódź 2000), Wybrane zagad­nie­nia z zakresu nauki har­mo­nii w kon­tek­ście baro­ko­wych wzor­ców muzycz­nych (Łódź 2002), Zja­wi­sko pro­gre­sji w histo­rycz­nym roz­woju har­mo­niki (sem­i­nar for music teach­ers of the Łódź region, Łódź 2002), Poten­cjał har­mo­niczny pro­gre­sji cho­pi­now­skich (Łódź 2003), Aspekt prak­tyczny naucza­nia har­mo­nii (sem­i­nar for music teach­ers of the Łódź region, Kutno 2004). Tech­nika sekwen­cyjna w histo­rycz­nym roz­woju har­mo­niki (the All-Poland Aca­d­e­mic and Method­olog­i­cal Har­mony Con­fer­ence, Łódź 2007), Dzieło muzy­czne jako wzo­rzec do nauki har­mo­nii (War­saw 2006, Szcze­cin 2007, Białystok 2008).

Cho­sen Com­po­si­tions (in Polish)