Ptaszyńska, Marta

File:Composername.jpg

Composer Name

Biography

Born: 29 July 1943

Country: Warsaw, Russia

Studies: National Academy of Music in Warsaw

Teachers: Tadeusz Paciorkiewicz, Jerzy Zgodziński

Website:

---

A composer and percussionist, Ptaszyńska was comprehensively educated in the percussion, having studied in Poznań with Jerzy Zgodziński, one of Poland's foremost percussionists, and then continuing her education at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she earned an Artist Diploma Degree in percussion instruments. The percussion has been central to most of her career. She has taught it at several American universities and colleges alongside lecturing composition. Twice a laureate of the Percussive Arts Society in the United States and recipient of its honorary award, Ptaszyńska has been its member and sat on its Board. She has also organized the International Percussion Workshops in Bydgoszcz, and served as an artistic advisor at the Polish Music Festival at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at the Lincoln Center in 1994 and 1996. Since 1972 Ptaszyńska has lived in the United States. More than that, she has been composing for the percussion, most of her works featuring this instrument in the forefront rather than the background. Marta Ptaszyńska is a laureate of many composition contests, including the Young Composers' Competition of the Polish Composers' Association (1971), Polish Radio and Television Contest (1972), Percussive Arts Society Competitions (United States, 1974 and 1976). Her La Novella d'inferno for strings from 1984 came second at UNESCO's National Composers' Tribune in Paris in 1986, and Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra from 1985 won a prize at the International Composing Competition in New York in 1987. Ptaszyńska was also a winner of ASCAP, Meet-the-Composer and Percussive Arts Society awards, and received the Polish Composers' Association Medal for promoting Polish music in the US (1988), Officer's Cross of Merit (1995) and the New York's Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Award (1997).

Works for Percussion

Solo

Ajikan - Unfolding Light - Multiple Percussion; Flute
Cadenze (Ptaszyńska) - Flute; Multiple Percussion
Classical Variations - Timpani; String Quartet
Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra (Ptaszyńska)
Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra (Ptaszyńska)
Cztery preludia - Vibraphone; Piano
Four Preludes for Vibraphone and Piano - Vibraphone; Piano
Graffito - Marimba
Jeu-Parti - Vibraphone; Harp
Little Mexican Fantasy - Multiple Percussion; Piano
Scherzo for Xylophone and Piano - Xylophone; Piano
Siderals
Space Model - Multiple Percussion
Spider Walk - Multiple Percussion
Stress (Ptaszyńska)
Vocalise - Vibraphone; Voice

Ensemble

Dream Lands, Magic Spaces - Percussion Sextet; Violin; Piano
Mobile - Percussion Duo
Music of Five Steps - Percussion Septet; Recorders (2)
Suite Variée - Percussion Quartet; Piano
Little Mosaic
Little Mexican Phantasy - Percussion Septet; Piano
Colorful World of Percussion
Concerto for Percussion Quartet and Orchestra
Synchrony - Percussion Trio
Linear Constructions in Space - Percussion Sextet
Letter to the Sun - frame drum, percussion quartet and narrator
Primary Colors - Percussion Quartet
Scintilla - Percussion Duo; Marimba Duo