At
16, Peter Paul Koprowski, born, Lodz, Poland, 1947, had written his orchestral
In Memoriam Karol Szymanowski, and in 1967, the young composer completed
his first renowned String Quartet. With an M.A. from the Krakow Academy
of Music, 1969, he took up studieswith Nadia Boulanger, Paris, 1970-71,
and later that year arrived in Canada where he became Assistant Professor,
Faculty of Music, McGill University, 1973-74, then Professor of Composition,
Faculty of Music, University of Western Ontario, 1974. Besides teaching
and obtaining a doctorate, University of Toronto, 1977, Dr. Koprowski has
received commissions to compose over 40 works for orchestras, ensembles
and artists, including the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet, Sinfonia Varsovia,
and the National Arts Centre, Ottawa. Dr.Koprowski’s Flute Concerto was
premiered by the Oslo Philharmonic and Per Oien, 1983, and his works have
been presented by such artists as Pinchas Zukerman, Jukka-Pekka Saraste,
Trevor Pinnock, Okko Kamu and Rivka Golani. Dr. Koprowski has also given
concerts, conducted and recorded in Canada, United States, South America,
Europe and Asia. Twice he received the Jules Leger Prize, 1989 and 1994.
He also received the Victor Martyn Lynch-Stanton Award, 1990, and the Jean
A. Chalmers National Music Award for four orchestral works, 1997. He has
been called Canada’s “composer laureate” and one of the country’s “foremost
artists "whose wide-ranging compositional voice does not preclude music
that comes, in his words, “straight from the soul." [Photo, courtesy Dr.
Peter Paul Koprowski]