Witold Szalonek (born in 1927 in Czechowice-Dziedzice, died in 2001 in Berlin) was a Polish composer. In 1949-56 he studied at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice. Following his first successes at international composers' competitions, he received a grant from Kranichsteiner Musikinstitut in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

(1960). In 1962-63 he continued his studies with

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher, conductor and composer. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organis ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. In 1967 he began to teach composition at the Katowice School and in 1970-74 was in charge of the Department of Composition and Theory. In the early 1970s he was invited by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst to work as ''artist in residence'' at West Berlin's

Hochschule der Künste The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the second largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research uni ...

. In 1973 he won the competition to succeed Boris Blacher as Professor of Composition there. He has conducted numerous seminars and courses in composition in Poland, Denmark, Germany, Finland and Slovakia. In 1990 he received an honorary doctor's degree from the Wilhelmian University in Münster. In 1963 Szalonek discovered and classified the so-called 'combined sounds' generated by the woodwind instruments. He is also the author of theoretical studies on a wide range of subjects, including ''combined sounds'', sonorism, Chopin and Debussy.

Selected works

* Suite from Kurpie for Alto Solo and 9 Instruments, 1955 * Satire for Orchestra, 1956 * 1+1+1+1 per 1-4 strumenti ad arco, 1969 * O, Pleasant Earth, Cantata for Voice and Orchestra, 1969 * Musica concertante for Double-bass and Orchestra, 1977 * Little Symphony B-A-C-H for Piano and Orchestra, 1981 * Bagattellae di Dahlem, II for Flute and Piano, 1998

References

External links

Witold Szalonek
at Porta Polonica Documentation Centre in Germany

1927 births 2001 deaths 20th-century Polish classical composers Polish composers Polish male classical composers 20th-century Polish male musicians {{Poland-composer-stub