Prof. dr hab. Piotr Dahlig

He completed his studies at the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw (1972–1977). Since 1975 he has specialised in ethnomusicology. His master’s thesis (1977) was devoted to narrow scales in the music of Polish south-eastern borderlands, while his doctoral thesis (1983) dealt with folk music practice in Poland from the perspective of the performers.

In 1977–1983 he was assistant lecturer as the Institute of Musicology and since 1983 he has worked at the Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences (History of Music Section, Folklore Lab). He is responsible for the Marian Sobieski Phonographic Archive (recordings of folk songs and instrumental melodies since 1904) and continues to expand the Institute’s collection with his own field recordings and films – about 20,000 recordings of songs and instrumental melodies, films of dances, playing of instrumentalists, folk performances and rural theatre performances from all regions of Poland and neighbouring countries. In 2000 he obtained a post-doctoral degree on the basis of a thesis entitled: “Musical traditions and their transformations. Between folk, popular and elite culture of inter-war Poland”. Since 2002 associate professor at the Faculty of History, University of Warsaw. Since 2003 head of the Ethnomusicology Unit of the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw.

Member of the International Council for Traditional Music (UNESCO), Society for Music Education, Warsaw Scientific Society and the Polish Society for Ethnochoreology. He has taken part in dozens of international conferences devoted to ethnic, folk, tribal musical cultures, to musical instruments, sources for the study of music history etc. He has conducted lectures at the University of Warsaw, Academy of Music in Warsaw and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń on musical cultures and (ethnic, folk) music of Poland and European nations as well as on theory of music education. In addition, he lectures in musical folklore at courses for teachers in general and music education institutions.

Current research topics: traditional music and migrations, resettlements, diasporas; ethnic traditions in the oeuvres of European composers of the first half of the twentieth century; rural theatre as a social and artistic phenomenon; Fryderyk Chopin’s mazurkas as an ethnomusicological problem.