Prof. dr hab. Zbigniew Skowron

Born in 1950 in Warsaw. In 1979 he completed his studies at the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw, under Prof. Zofia Lissa’s supervision. He is also a graduate in Polish studies (master’s thesis under Prof. Andrzej Lam’s supervision) and music theory of the Academy of Music in Warsaw (master’s thesis under Prof. Włodzimierz Kotoński’s supervision). He has been working at the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw, since 1982. In 1984 he held a scholarship from the Italian Government at the Università di Palermo. In 1986 he was granted a doctoral degree on the basis of a thesis entitled “Work, creative process, perception – in reflections of selected representatives of the musical avant-garde of the second half of the twentieth century”. In the 1987/1988 academic year he conducted research on new American music under Leonard B. Meyer at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on a scholarship from the American Council of Learned Societies. In 1994 he obtained a post-doctoral degree on the basis of the thesis “The origins and development of new music in the United States”. In 1993–1998 he conducted a series of lectures on new Polish and American music at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, Royal Holloway College (University of London) and Université de Poitiers. In 2003 he held a Paul Sacher Stiftung scholarship in Basel, where he prepared material for the publication of Witold Lutosławski’s musical writings and notes. In 2012 he became a professor. In 2013 he delivered lectures on Fryderyk Chopin epistolography and Witold Lutosławski’s music in Sapporo, Tokyo and Osaka. In 2016 he became the director of the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw.

In 2000–2015 he was editor-in-chief of Przegląd Muzykologiczny published by the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw. In 2009–2015 he was active in the board of the Musicological Section of the Polish Composers’ Union. In 2011 he received the annual Polish Composers’ Union Prize for “the book Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Music Thought, and for translating and editing work which fills acute gaps in the Polish awareness of world culture”. In addition, he is a founding member of the Witold Lutosławski Society, which in 2013 honoured him with a medal issued to mark the centenary of its patron’s birth. Since 2015 he has been a member of the Programme Committee of Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (PWM) in Kraków.

Zbigniew Skowron’s research interests include the history of the early modern music thought, theoretical and aesthetic aspects of music of the second half of the twentieth century (European and American avant-garde), Witold Lutosławski’s aesthetic views as well as biography and epistolography of Fryderyk Chopin.

His academic output includes the following books: Teoria i estetyka awangardy muzycznej drugiej połowy XX wieku (1989, 2nd edition 2014), Nowa muzyka amerykańska (1995, 2nd edition 2012); Myśl muzyczna Jeana-Jacques’a Rousseau (2010) – hailed as the most beautiful book of the year in the humanities during the 51st Competition of the Polish Association of Book Publishers. Zbigniew Skowron has edited a number of collected works: Styl i estetyka twórczości Witolda Lutosławskiego (Kraków 2000); Lutosławski Studies (Oxford 2001), Karol Szymanowski w perspektywie kultury muzycznej przeszłości i teraźniejszości (Kraków 2007), as well as critical source editions: Witold Lutosławski, Zapiski (Warsaw 2008); Lutosławski on Music (Lanham, Maryland 2007), Witold Lutosławski, O muzyce. Pisma i wypowiedzi (Gdańsk 2012) and – together with Zofia Helman and Hanna Wróblewską-Straus – Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina, vol. 1, 1816–1831 (Warsaw 2009).

In addition, he has translated English, French, German and Italian books on the aesthetics of music, musical historiography and Chopin: Enrico Fubini, Historia estetyki muzycznej (Kraków 1998); Jeana-Jacques Eigeldinger, Fryderyk Chopin. Szkice do metody gry fortepianowej (Kraków 1995, 2nd edition 2010), idem, Chopin w oczach swoich uczniów (Kraków 2000, 2nd edition 2010); William G. Atwood, Paryskie światy Fryderyka Chopina (Kraków 2005); Carl Dahlhaus, Estetyka muzyki (Warsaw 2007), idem, Podstawy historii muzyki (Warsaw 2010); Marie-Paule Rambeau, Chopin w życiu i twórczości George Sand (Kraków 2009). Particularly important among them is George Sand’s five-volume Historia mojego życia published in Polish in 2015 (Warsaw, Fryderyk Chopin Institute).