Assistant Professor Paweł Kamiński

I started learn­ing to play the piano at the age of 10. In the period of 1973–78 I stud­ied at the Józef Elsner State Sec­ondary School of Music in War­saw under Alek­san­dra Sos­nowska, MA. I passed the matura exam­i­na­tion in 1976 at the N. Żmichowska Sec­ondary School No. 15 in War­saw and then I stud­ied Com­puter Sci­ence at the Uni­ver­sity of War­saw. In 1978 I became a stu­dent at the Fry­deryk Chopin Acad­emy of Music, where I stud­ied for 5 years in the classes of Pro­fes­sor Jan Ekier and Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Alicja Paleta-Bugaj. In 1983 I obtained a diploma with hon­ours there. In the same year I was given an award of the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Art for out­stand­ing study achieve­ments. Three times – in 1980, 1981 and 1984 – I won the F. Chopin Soci­ety scholarship.

From Octo­ber 1983 I worked at the FCAM as Assis­tant at the 1st Chair of Piano. In 1987 I received the FCAM Rector’s Award (indi­vid­ual, 3^rd degree) for spe­cial edu­ca­tional and teach­ing achieve­ments. In Novem­ber 1992 I obtained qual­i­fi­ca­tions of the first degree and since March 1993 I have been Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor. In 1999 I received the FCAM Rector’s Award (indi­vid­ual, 2nd degree) one more time. In Feb­ru­ary 2001 I obtained qual­i­fi­ca­tions of the sec­ond degree.

Since 1984 I have been coop­er­at­ing with Pro­fes­sor Jan Ekier on edit­ing the National Edi­tion of Com­plete Works by F. Chopin (WN). I am a co-editor of all 36 vol­umes pub­lished by the Foun­da­tion of the National Edi­tion and the Pol­ish Music Pub­lish­ers (the last vol­ume, Sup­ple­ment is planned for the end of 2010 and the begin­ning of 2011). Works on the WN resulted in a num­ber of speeches at musi­col­o­gist con­fer­ences and lec­tures at uni­ver­si­ties and schools in Europe (Spain, Ger­many, Poland, Rus­sia, Ser­bia, Switzer­land, Hun­gary), Amer­ica (USA, Canada) and Japan; their issues are con­nected with edit­ing and using the crit­i­cal source edi­tions (“urtexts”) in the per­for­mance practice.

Since 1998 I have been Chair­man of the Foun­da­tion of the National Edi­tion of Com­plete Works by F. Chopin.

I have given con­certs in Poland and abroad by par­tic­i­pat­ing – as a soloist – in sym­phony con­certs and by giv­ing recitals and semi-recitals.

I have taken part in jury work at piano competitions.

In ped­a­gogy I com­bine expe­ri­ences gained dur­ing my stud­ies, con­cert and teach­ing activ­ity, as well as dur­ing exam­in­ing auto­graphs and first edi­tions; I put spe­cial empha­sis on devel­op­ing the abil­ity of cre­ative read­ing of a text and next on the abil­ity to show the lis­ten­ers one’s vision of a music piece in a free and expres­sive way.

While work­ing with stu­dents I want them to achieve the fol­low­ing goals:

1. a nat­ural way of playing,
2. mas­ter­ing the rich­est pos­si­ble range of the piano sound,
3. abil­ity to read the composer’s inten­tion from the score,
4. devel­op­ment of music imagination,
5. broad devel­op­ment of cre­ative personality,
6. being inde­pen­dent at work,
7. form­ing and strength­en­ing one’s high self-esteem.

I run classes in Pol­ish, Eng­lish, French and Russian.