Marta Ptaszyńska (born 29 July 1943) is a Polish

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

ist and professor of music at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. She has been described by the Polish Music Center of the University of Southern California as "one of the best known Polish woman composers" as well as "a virtuoso percussionist specializing in performances of contemporary music".Polish Music Center, University of Southern California
(archive from 5 June 2016), accessed 27 September 2018.

Career

Ptaszyńska was born in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, Poland. In 1998, she was appointed a Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago. Since 2005 she holds an

endowed chair A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are ...

of ''Helen B. & Frank L. Sulzberger Professor in Composition''. She has been honored with many prizes and awards including Simon J. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the Danks Award of the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...

, the Fromm Music Foundation Award, the Award at the

International Rostrum of Composers The International Rostrum of Composers (IRC) is an annual forum organized by the International Music Council that offers broadcasting representatives the opportunity to exchange and publicize pieces of contemporary classical music. It is funded by c ...

at the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

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 ...

, several

ASCAP Award The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

s, and many more. In 1995, she received the ''Officer Cross of Merit'' of the Republic of Poland.

Works

Orchestral music

Vocal and instrumental works

Chamber music

Instrumental and solo works

Multimedia works

Music for children

Books

*Ptaszynska, Marta & Niewiadomska, Barbara; ''Colorful World of Percussion'' (1978) A book for percussion training in 5 volumes. * about Ptaszyńska : ''Muzyka to język najdoskonalszy. Rozmowy z Martą Ptaszyńską'', Kraków/Cracow PWM 2001

Notes

External links

Marta Ptaszynska's page at Theodore Presser Company

Marta Ptaszyńska on the University of Chicago's website

March 4, 1988 & May 25, 1997 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ptaszynska, Marta Polish classical composers Living people 1943 births Polish women classical composers 20th-century Polish classical composers 21st-century Polish classical composers Classical percussionists 20th-century Polish women composers 21st-century Polish women composers Polish percussionists Women percussionists Composers for carillon