Meyer Krzysztof
2008 –
He was born in Krakow on August 11, 1943. From the age of five he began studying piano, and from 1954 theory and composition with Stanislaw Wiechowicz. After promotion to the Fryderyk Chopin State Music School in Kraków he entered the Kraków College of Music where he received two honorable mention degrees: in 1965 in composition under Krzystof Penderecki (after the death of Stanislaw Wiechowicz) and in 1966 in theory. In 1964, 1966 and 1968 he went to France to study with nadia Boulanger. In 1965-67 he participated as a pianist in the contemporary music group “MW2 Ensemble” giving concerts in partria and abroad, in major European countries, also performing his own solo piano compositions. From 1966 to 1987 Krzystof Meyer taught composition at the Academy of Music in Krakow. In 1972-75 he was deputy and then director of the Department of Music Theory. Since 1987 he has taught music composition at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. He has lectured on contemporary music abroad (Soviet Union, East and West Germany, Austria, Brazil). In the years 1985-1989 he was president of the Union of Polish Composers. He won numerous prizes, such as first prize at the Competition for Young Composers in France (1966), second prize at the Competition for Young Polish Composers with the 1 first symphony (1966), the Aaron Coopland Syudio Fellowship (1966), Honorable Mention for the second symphony (1967) and first prize for the third symphony (1968) at the Young Composers Competition in Fitelberg, the
Prix de Composition Musicale at the Prince Pierre de Monaco Foundation for the work “Cyberiada” (1970), twice special mention ala Tribune Internationale des Compositeurs UNESCO in Paris for his String Quartets No. 2 and No. 3 (1970, 1976), Second Prize at the Artur Malawski Competition in Kraków for the “Chamber Concerto for Oboe, Percussion and Strings” (1972), twice the prize of the Ministry of Culture and Arts (1973, 1975), First Prize at the Karol Szymanowski Competition in Warsaw for the Fourth Symphony (1974), twice the medal awarded by the Brazilian Government for the String Quartet no. 4 and for the “Retro Concerto” (1975, 1977) the Gottfried-von-Herder Prize (Vienna, 1984), the Annual Prize of the Union of Polish Composers (1992), the Alfred Jurzykowski Prize (New York, 1994) and the Johann-Stamitz Prize (Mannheim, 1996). He is a member of the “Freie Akademie der Künste” in Mannheim.Krzysztof Meyer’s compositions have been performed all over the world. They have been performed at international contemporary music festivals such as the “Warsaw Autumn,” “Musicki Biennale Zagreb,” “Holland Festival,” “Musikprotokoll Graz,” “Aldeburgh Festival,” “Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival,” “Lucerne Festival,” and many others. Many of his works have been commissioned by leading soloists (the “Flute Concerto” for Aurèle Nicolet, the “Chamber Concerto” for oboe for Lothar Faber, the “Pezzo capriccioso” for Heinz Holliger, the “Trumpet Concerto” for Timofei Dokshitser, the Cello Sonata for David Geringas, the “Canti Amadei” for Ivan Monighetti). His Symphony No. 1 was one of the three contemporary pieces obliged at the International Courses for Conductors” held in 1971 in Munich by Igor Markevich in 1971, as was his “Hommage à Johannes Brahms” which was performed at the “International Course for Conductors” in Dublin in 1999 conducted by Gerhard Markson.Krzysztof Meyer is the author of the first Polish monograph on the life and work of Dmitri Shostakovich, which has been translated several times in the West . He has also written numerous articles and essays, mainly on contemporary music, published in the journals “Melos,” “Muzyka,” “Ruch Muzyczny,” “Das Orchester,” “Sovetskaya Muzyka” and other periodicals.