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Krzysztof Pawlisz

organ

An organist, improviser, composer, church musician, and teacher. He was born in 1977 in Cracow. He began learning to play the organ in 1990 at the Fryderyk Chopin State Secondary Music School under the direction of Aleksandra Gawlik. He then studied under Julian Gembalski (1996-2001, Katowice), Jean Boyer (2001-2004, Lyon), and Pieter van Dijk (under the Erasmus programme, 2002, Amsterdam).

            He is a two-time winner of the All-Polish Auditions for Secondary Music Schools Organ Classes in Wrocław (third prize in 1994, first prize in 1996), a second-prize winner (ex aequo, the first prize not awarded) in the International Organ Competition in Magadino (Switzerland, 2002), and a finalist of the Musica Antiqua festival in Bruges (Belgium, 2006).

            In addition to interpreting organ music, he also practices organ improvisation. He has been honing his skills in this area under, among others, Julian Gembalski, Loïc Malié, and Gabriel Marghieri. His doctoral dissertation was devoted to this art, presenting, among other things, his original method for learning improvisation in styles employing Renaissance contrapuntal techniques (Academy of Music in Kraków, 2012).

            As a soloist, he has given concerts in Poland, France, Switzerland, Germany, Ukraine, and Italy. He frequently plays with vocal ensembles performing Gregorian chant or medieval monodies, improvising interludes in the alternatim technique or creating musical commentaries related to the chants being performed. With the Chorzów Gregorian ensemble Schola Cantorum Minorum Chosoviensis, he has produced the phonographic project Harmonie Universelle, a three-CD album featuring compositions by Jehan Titelouze and improvisations on a 17th-century French organs. He also performed the acclaimed two-CD album Old-Polish Advent songs with improvised organ preludes (Chopin University Press, 2024).

            Since 2019, as an assistant professor at the Department of Church Music of the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, where he lectures on harmony, basso continuo, and chamber music. Since 2005, he has also been associated with the Institute of Church Music in Kraków, where he teaches organ. Since 2017, he has been the organist at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Cracow.