Zygmunt Krauze

Who is Zygmunt Krauze?

Zygmunt Krauze is a Polish composer of contemporary classical music and pianist.

He studied piano with Maria Wilkomirska and composition with Kazimierz Sikorski, and studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1966 and 1967.

In 1967 he founded, in Poland, the Warsztat Muzyczny ensemble, which performed new works of contemporary classical music, and commissioned works from more than 100 composers.

From 1982 to 1989 he served as the artistic advisor of IRCAM. He served as chairman of the International Society for Contemporary Music from 1987 to 1990. Since 2006 he has been a professor at the Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw.

He composes in a unistic style; that is to say that his works avoid tension or contrast, and are as homogeneous as possible. This style was influenced by the Unistic paintings of Władysław Strzemiński.

In 1994 and 1997 Krauze performed with Chris Cutler's experimental music group, P53 at the 25th Frankfurt Jazz Festival in Germany, and the Angelica International Festival of contemporary music in Bologna, Italy. His music has been recorded by the Muzy, Dux, ORF, Nonesuch, Thesis, Musical Observations, Collins Classics, Recommended Records, and EMI labels.