Piotr Nawrot (born 1955) is a Polish Roman Catholic priest and musicologist, known for his work in the field of Latin American Baroque music. A native of

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint Joh ...

, Nawrot joined the

Divine Word Missionaries The Society of the Divine Word ( la, Societas Verbi Divini), abbreviated SVD and popularly called the Verbites or the Divine Word Missionaries, and sometimes the Steyler Missionaries, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Ri ...

in 1974, achieving ordination in 1981, in the same year earning his degree from the

John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin ( pl, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, la, Universitas Catholica Lublinensis Ioannis Pauli II, abbreviation KUL), established in 1918. It is the only private college in Poland with the s ...

. His first missionary assignment was to

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

, where he developed an interest in the

reductions Reductions ( es, reducciones, also called ; , pl. ) were settlements created by Spanish rulers and Roman Catholic missionaries in Spanish America and the Spanish East Indies (the Philippines). In Portuguese-speaking Latin America, such red ...

established by Jesuit priests in the 17th and 18th centuries. He enrolled in the

Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Roman Catholic research university in Washington, D.C. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by U. ...

in 1986, taking a master's degree in music and a doctorate in musicology. Research undertaken as part of his studies led him to investigate the music left behind by the Jesuits in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

; ultimately he discovered 13,000 pages of music held by members of the Moxo, Chiquito, and other tribes, many in the

Santa Cruz Department Santa Cruz () is the largest of the nine constituent departments of Bolivia, occupying about one-third (33.74%) of the country's territory. With an area of , it is slightly smaller than Japan or the US state of Montana. It is located in the ...

. He also discovered music in the Convent of Santa Clara in

Cochabamba Cochabamba ( ay, Quchapampa; qu, Quchapampa) is a city and municipality in central Bolivia in a valley in the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cochabamba Department and the fourth largest city in Bolivia, with a population of 6 ...

. He has since reconstructed, edited, and published more than thirty volumes of music from the reductions, and continues to preserve and perform it with the assistance of local organizations and the Catholic Church. Nawrot was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1998 for his musicological work. A member of the Anthropos Institute and the Bolivian Academy of Ecclesiastical History, he became creative director of the International Festival of American Renaissance and Baroque Music, “Misiones de Chiquitos” in 1997. He is also a member of the theology faculty of the

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań The Adam Mickiewicz University ( pl, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu; Latin: ''Universitas Studiorum Mickiewicziana Posnaniensis'') is a research university in Poznań, Poland. It traces its origins to 1611, when under the Roy ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nawrot, Piotr 1955 births Living people Polish musicologists 20th-century Polish Roman Catholic priests Polish Roman Catholic missionaries 20th-century musicologists 21st-century musicologists 21st-century Polish Roman Catholic priests John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin alumni Catholic University of America alumni Divine Word Missionaries Order Polish expatriates in Bolivia Clergy from Poznań