Łukasz Długosz is a graduate of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich as well as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris, and Yale University. He won first prize at the Yamaha Competition in Mannheim and First Prize at the 5th International Flute Competition. Długosz was nominated twice for the Paszport Polityki and Gwarancja Kultury by TVP Kultura as well as receiving the Gasteig Musikpreis, Zeit-Preis, Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, and the Polish Minister of Culture and Heritage Award. Długosz was awarded the Medal Zasłużony Kulturze Gloria Artis for his outstanding cultural activity and promotion of Polish culture and the International Classical Music Award in 2015 and 2016.
Agata Kielar-Długosz her flute studies in Krakow and later graduated from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich and the Hochschule für Musik in Weimar as well as Yale University. As part of the Erasmus scholarship, she continued studying at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig. Kielar-Długosz won the scholarship of the Minister of Culture Young Poland, and the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now scholarship, and the Fulbright Commission scholarship. Additionally, she received the Podkarpackie Marshal's Award for special achievements in the field of artistic creativity.
Andrzej Jungiewicz studied piano with Józef Stompel and Maria Szwajger-Kułakowska and had chamber music classes under Urszula Stańczyk at the Academy of Music in Katowice. He was granted a Ministry of Art and Culture Scholarship in 1986 and is the laureate of the Frederic Chopin Society in Warsaw, the Chamber Contemporary Music Competition in Łódź and The Youth Meetings’ Festival in Augustów. He currently serves as a teacher at the Academy of Music in Katowice.
Rafał Augustyn was born in 1951 in Wrocław. He is a composer, music critic and publisher. He studied composition studies were taken at the State Higher School of Music in Wrocław under R. Bukowski and with H.M. Górecki at the PWSM in Katowice. He later studied Polish language at the University of Wrocław and worked at the Instytut Filologii Polskiej. Augustyn has collaborated with the publications Ruch Muzyczn and the Oder aa well as Polish Radio and the series Klasyk, nasz bliski. He directed the Musica Polonica Nova festival in Wroclaw for ten years and was a member of the Programming Committee of the Warsaw Autumn festival. The music of Augustyn is said to be characterised by asymmetry of construction, variation technique, and variable metre. His harmonies are often based on synthetic chords, rich in colour and emotion. Some pieces display the influence of jazz and the composer has an affinity for repetitive music. In recent years, the composer has explored the electronic music and text-sound composition.
Wojciech Widłak was born in 1971 in Kraków. He is a composer, teacher and music critic. He graduated from the Academy of Music in Kraków, having studied composition with Marek Stachowski and organ with Jan Jargoo. He continued his studies under Hans Abrahamsen at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen. Widłak was a member of the Polish Composers’ Union from 1997 to 2009. Since 2005, he has served as the Head of the Composition Department at the Academy of Music in Kraków. He was recognized by the 56th International Rostrum of Composers UNESCO in 2006 and was the recipient of artistic and research scholarships in Poland, Denmark, Great Britain and Italy. He has composed over 40 works, commissioned by the Warsaw Autumn Friends’ Foundation and Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung. He has likened composition with the work of a sculptor. He finds inspiration in the visual sphere and “images of the imagination.” Widłak identifies the substance of his work as a creation and expression of an individual world of sounds and experiences to be shared it the listener.
Alixandra Porembski, English Language Annotator
