Krauze, Zygmunt 1938
Author: PWM Edition
Last updated：September 20, 2022
Author: PWM Edition
Zygmunt Krauze
(Born 1938 in Warsaw, Poland)
Zygmunt Krauze is a Polish composer and pianist, born in Warsaw in 1938. He received his musical education at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw (now the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music), studying piano with Maria Wiłkomirska (graduating in 1962) and composition with Kazimierz Sikorski (graduating in 1964). From 1966 to 1967, he resided in Paris as a French government scholarship recipient, studying composition with Nadia Boulanger. In 1967, Krauze founded the 'Warsztat Muzyczny' (Music Workshop) ensemble, dedicated to performing new music, consisting of piano, clarinet, trombone, and cello. Between its founding and 1988, the ensemble performed nearly 300 concerts worldwide. Contemporary composers such as Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Kazimierz Serocki, Wojciech Kilar, and Michael Nyman wrote works for this ensemble.
Krauze began his artistic career as a concert pianist, performing primarily contemporary music in concert halls across Europe and America even while still a student. In 1966, he won first prize in the contemporary music performance category at the Gaudeamus International Music Competition held in the Netherlands. He also pioneered a new form of expression in Poland called 'Performance,' which involved creating musical space installations in unconventional venues such as museums, galleries, castles, and palaces, collaborating with emerging architects.
He is also an educator, teaching composition and piano at universities worldwide, including Cleveland State University, the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and Keio University. Since 2002, he has served as a professor of composition at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź. Since 1970, he has also been involved in the organization and management of various institutions and events, including collaborating with music festivals such as the 'Warsaw Autumn' International Festival of Contemporary Music, and serving as president of the Polish Society for Contemporary Music and president of the Witold Lutosławski Society.
The forms and genres of works composed by Zygmunt Krauze are diverse. Naturally, as a highly skilled pianist himself, he has written numerous piano pieces and achieved success performing them. His instrumental works range from minimalist miniatures to pieces requiring hundreds of performers. He has also composed numerous operas, including The Star (1981), Balthazar (2001), Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy (2004), Polyeucte (2010), and The Trap (2011), which have been staged in major opera houses in Poland, France, and Germany. Krauze's oeuvre also includes choral works, songs, and incidental music.
Krauze is also the founder of 'Unism' in music. Unism is a theory derived from painting, newly proposed by the painter Władysław Strzemiński. In music, it is characterized by the uniformity of musical form from the beginning to the end of a composition, with no introduction of contrasts or new elements, and the potential to eliminate limitations on the length of a piece. Examples of unistic musical works include Five Unistic Compositions for Piano and Polychromy.
Author : Saitoh, Noriko
Last Updated: August 1, 2008
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Author : Saitoh, Noriko
A composer born in Warsaw, Poland. He is also active as a pianist in various parts of Europe and America. He studied music in Warsaw and Paris and formed an avant-garde quartet. Many of his works feature dense textures. He also has works that explore the possibilities of space and utilize multimedia. Works that include piano in their instrumentation include the Piano Concerto (1976) and Siegfried and Siegmund for Piano and Cello (1988).
Works(18)
Concerto (1)
concerto (2)
Piano Solo (9)
Various works (7)