BOGUSŁAW   GRABOWSKI

 

February 26, 2006, 4 pm

 

First Presbyterian Church

Fifth Avenue (bet’n 11th & 12th Streets)  

Admission Free

Bogusław Grabowski was born 1955 in Sopot. He studied music at the Warsaw Music Academy in the organ classes taught by Prof. Joachim Grubich and graduated in 1982. The year before, he attended the International Master Class in Organ Music Interpretation given by Floor Peeters in Belgium.

 

In 1985 he assumed the position of main organist at St. Mary's Basilica in Gdańsk. He also started teaching at Gdańsk Music Academy where he now holds a professorship and gives organ classes. From 2003 he also holds Church Music classes, a newly founded study programme at the Academy.

In addition he gives classes at the Gdańsk Institute of Theology, which is a subsidiary of the Lublin Catholic University.

 

He has performed concerts in almost all major Polish venues and his concert activities have taken him to Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden as well as Ukraine, Latvia and Russia.

He has performed recordings for radio and television in Poland, Germany, Sweden and Ukraine, and has ten recordings to his credit which were released on MC and CD.

 

Recently he is increasingly composing his own music, mainly for vocals, organ, and choir, but also for symphony orchestra. On 15 August 1997 the premier performance of his symphonic song “Ave Maria” for soprano, choir and symphony orchestra was welcomed with enthusiasm. The work was written for the 1,000 anniversary of the city of Gdansk and received a nomination for the Pomeranian Music Award of 1997. In this Sunday's concert he performs his own composition, "Improvisations". Since 1978 he has untiringly organized over 500 concerts with the participation of some of the best organists, chamber musicians, choirs and orchestras from Poland, Europe, North and South America, Australia, and Japan. He is organizer and inventor of recital cycles such as the Dominican Concerts [Dominikanskie Koncerty], St. Mary Organ Evenings [Mariackie Wieczory Organowe], Musica Sacra, and Music of Sacral Spaces [Muzyka Przestrzeni Sakralnej]. He has also organized concerts in Rumia, Pelplin, Kartuzy, and was co-organiser of the Gdynia Organ Concerts [Gdynskie Koncerty Organowe] at the Sacred Heart of Lord of Jesus Church in Gdynia. In 1990 he founded the Gdansk Organ Centre [Gdanskie Centrum Organowe] at the Voivodeship Culture Centre, later the Baltic Culture Centre, which aims at promoting ancient and modern music in sacred buildings. The centerpieces of these musical events are the concerts of the International Festival of Organ, Choir and Chamber Music organized in monumental sacred buildings in Pomerania.