Zagajewski Artur
2019 – “Ricercar” for cello ensemble.
Composer and music theorist, born in 1978 in Tomaszow Mazowiecki. He graduated with honors in music theory (2005) under Prof. Ryszard Daniel Golianek, with whom he also later took a PhD, and in composition (2008) in the class of M. Bronislaw Kazimierz Przybylski at the Academy of Music in Lodz. He also studied electronic music with M. Krzysztof Knittel. In 2012 he discussed his doctoral thesis in composition, written under the supervision of Prof. Zygmunt Krauze.
He has participated in competitions chaired by Marek Choloniewski (Academy of Music in Krakow) and Grazyna Pstrokonska-Nawratil (Academy of Music in Wroclaw), and is a winner of numerous competitions including the International Composition Competition “850 Jahre Cottbus – Musikalische Bilder einer Stadt” (honorable mention, 2006), the BMW Crash! Competition, organized by the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art in Szczecin (honorable mention in 2006 and first prize in 2007), the Tadeusz Baird Young Composers’ Competition (second place in 2007 and 2009), the fifth composition competition organized as part of the “Srebrna Szybka” Festival of Contemporary Children’s and Youth Music (honorable mention, 2009), the third International Grazyna Bacewicz Composition Competition in Lodz (first prize, 2009) and the “in-OUT-side” competition organized by the Sound Screen Festival in Bydgoszcz (first prize, 2009). In 2010, he was awarded the Lodz EUREKA statuette; in 2014, his Stabat Mater was nominated for the Wroclaw Polonica Nova Award.
His pieces have been presented in Festivals such as the Warsaw Autumn, Musica Polonica Nova (NFM, Wroclaw), the Festival of Premieres (NOSPR, Katowice), the 7th KODY Festival of Musical Tradition and Avant-Garde (Lublin), the Loop Festival (Brussels), the Internationaal Kamermuziekfestival (Schiermonnikoog, Netherlands), the 33rd International Ankara Music Festival (Turkey), Lodz Nacht in Stuttgart (Germany), Sound perspectives of the screen, the Musical laboratory of arts: film – electro-acoustics – intermedia (Bydgoszcz), the Fokus Lodz Biennale, the Colours of Poland and the contem.ucha cycle (Lodz Philharmonic), the Music at the Old Monastery (Lodz), the International Festival of Acoustic, the Electronic Music and Multimedia Projection in Brno (Czechia), the Lodz Musical Easter, the Sound Screen Festival (Bydgoszcz), the Lodz “Ballet Meetings” International Ballet Festival (Academy of Music in Lodz), and the CRICOTEKA Centre for Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor (Krakow). He has collaborated with cellist Dominik Polonski, choreographer Paulina Wycichowska, performance artist Zorka Wollny, video artist Michał Brzezinski as well as with bands such as “Bang on a Can All-Stars,” Kwartludium, Art of the Sounders and the Polish Cello Quartet.
Zagajewski conducts research on rock music, presenting it at various readings (the Popular Music Workshops at the Academy of Music in Lodz, the Polish National Conference for Art School Teachers organized by CENSA Centre for the Education of Art School Teachers and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage) and some publications (Glissando Operomania).
Devoted to outreach, he gives readings and workshops for young people on the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. He has been a jury member at a number of festivals, including the mYear Festival of Musical Imagination (Academy of Music in Wroclaw). He is an assistant at the Academy of Music in Lodz and teaches theoretical subjects at the S. Moniuszko Music School in Lodz. He is also a member of the Polish Composer’s Union and the program committee of the Warsaw Autumn international festival of contemporary music.