Edition: IV

Agata Zubel

Agata Zubel

Country: Poland

The Artist's Music

Bio/Studies

Agata Zubel was born in Wroclaw. She graduated with honors Primus Inter Pares from the Karol Lipinski Academy of Music where she studied composition with Jan Wichrowski and voice with Danuta Paziuk-Zipser. In 2004, she received a doctorate in musical arts. She is currently teaching at the Academy of Music in Wroclaw. She has received scholarships granted by the Ministry of Culture, the Rockefeller Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, the Executive Board of the City of Wroclaw, and the International Foundation for Education. She is also a member of the Polish Composers’ Union.

Career

In the past few years she has performed Chantefleurs et Chantefables by Witold Lutoslawski (Musica Polonica Nova), DW9 by Bernhard Lang (Warsaw Autumn), Luci mie traditrici by Salvatore Sciarrino (Nostalgia Festival), The Star by Zygmunt Krauze (electroacoustic adaptation by C. Duchnowski at the Polish Theater in Wroclaw) and the title role in Phaedra, an opera by Dobromiła Jaskot and Madeline in The Fall of the House of Usher by Ph. Glass (Teatr Wielki – National Polish Opera). She has performed many concerts abroad: in Italy, Austria, Portugal, Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Korea, Canada and the United States.

She has won several competitions for both voice and composition. At the beginning of 2005, she received the prestigious Passport of Polityka award for classical music. In the same year her 2nd Symphony – commissioned by Deutsche Welle – was premiered during the Beethoven Festival in Bonn. Subsequent commissions have included String Quartet No.1 (Ultraschall Festival in Berlin 2007), of Songs (Wratislavia Cantans Festival 2007), Cascando (Central European Music Festival in Seattle 2007), Shades of Ice (London Sinfonietta 2011), Street of a Human City (Deutschlandfunk for Warsaw Autumn Festival 2011), Labyrinth (Polish Institute in Tel Aviv 2012), Percussion Store (Krakow Philharmonic 2012),…

In 2011 she was invited as “composer-in-residence” of Other Minds Festival in San Francisco. During last two seasons (2010-2012) she was also “composer-in-residence” in Krakow Philharmonic.

Notes on the Musma Composition

“Lullaby”

William Shakespeare Sonnet 154 The little Love-god lying once asleep, Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warmed; And so the General of hot desire Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed. This brand she quenched in a cool well by, Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual, Growing a bath and healthful remedy, For men diseased; but I, my mistress’ thrall, Came there for cure and this by that I prove, Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.