Marcin Zdunik
Polish cellist, soloist, chamber musician and composer. His repertoire ranges from Renaissance to contemporary music; he improvises, composes and performs his own arrangements. Marcin Zdunik has been invited to perform at prestigious festivals such as the BBC Proms Festival in London, the Martha Argerich Project in Lugano, and Chopin and his Europe in Warsaw.
Giving solo concerts in many European countries, the United States, and Korea, Marcin Zdunik has collaborated with many renowned orchestras, including the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Prague Chamber Orchestra, European Union Chamber Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and distinguished conductors such as Andrey Boreyko, Antoni Wit, and Tadeusz Strugała. He regularly shares the stage with such renowned musicians as Nelson Goerner, Rafał Blechacz, Krzysztof Jabłoński, Bomsori, Krzysztof Jakowicz, Jose Gallardo and the Modigliani Quartet.
He has performed with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Tatjana Grindenko at the Chamber Music Connects the World festival in Kronberg. He has performed as a soloist in many renowned concert halls, including the National Philharmonic Concert Hall in Warsaw, Rudolfinum in Prague, Carnegie Hall in New York, Cadogan Hall in London, Čajkovsky Conservatory in Moscow, Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg, Konzerthaus Dortmund, and Slovak Philharmonic in Bratislava. In the 2016/17 season he held the title of “Artist in Residence” of the National Philharmonic in Warsaw.
Composition plays an important role in his musical life. His most recent pieces include “Ghost of the past. Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra,” “Piano Quartet,” “Cor Jesu” for solo tenor, mixed choir and orchestra, and “Passacaglia” for solo violin. In 2007 Marcin Zdunik won first prize at the VI Lutoslawski International Cello Competition in Warsaw, Poland. He was also awarded the Grand Prix for an outstanding performance of Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto and received nine other prizes. In 2008 he represented Polish Radio in Bratislava (Slovakia) at the International Forum of Young Artists (IFYP) organized by the European Broadcasting Union, where he won the title of New Talent 2008. In 2010 he received the Polish TV Culture Award, Gwarancje Kultury and the 2010 Fryderyk Music Award for the album Haydn, Denisov “Cello Concertos.”
More recently, he has recorded the complete works for cello and piano by Robert Schumann (2014, with Aleksandra Świgut), Mieczysław Weinberg’s “Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra” (2015, with the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra and Andres Mustonen), and a duo album “Bach Stories,” which includes works by Johann Sebastian Bach and improvisations related to them (with Aleksander Dębicz, Warner Classics 2017). In 2022 he received the prestigious Fryderyk Prize for two of his latest CDs: “Words of Mystery. Music for cello and choir” album recorded with the Camerata Silesia choir conducted by Anna Szostak and Paweł Mykietyn’s “Cello Concerto” with the Symphony Orchestra of the National Forum of Music in Wrocław conducted by Bassem Akiki. Another of his recent recordings – entire chamber music by Chopin performed with pianist Szymon Nehring and violist Ryszard Groblewski – was warmly received by European critics. Zdunik has studied with such renowned musicians as Julius Berger (Augsburg University) and Andrzej Bauer (F. Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw).
He graduated from the University of Warsaw obtaining a master’s degree in musicology. He is currently a member of the instrumental faculty of the Academy of Music in Gdansk (Poland) and the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw (Poland). He has held the title of professor since April 2021.