Magdalena Adamek holds a Master of Arts in Piano Performance from the Chopin Academy of Music, Warsaw, Poland, and Doctor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Alberta, Canada. She is currently Contract Instructor in Piano at Department of Music at University of Alberta. Adamek has led an active performing career giving performances across Poland, Germany, Austria, Lithuania, France, China, USA, and Canada, with repertoire ranging from the classical period to the contemporary music. Her long-term artistic project involves promoting piano music by composers, for instance Chopin, Moniuszko, Szymanowski, and post-romantic composer Feliks Nowowiejski. Over the past few years the artistic project concerning Nowowiejski involved world premiere recordings of Nowowiejski’s music for piano solo, doctoral essay devoted to Nowowiejski’s music for piano solo (“Piano Works by Feliks Nowowiejski.”), national and international lectures and presentations (College Music Society Conference at the University of Colorado at Denver in 2005, The Rough and the Polished symposium at the University of Toronto in 2005, lecture recital at the University of Alberta in 2005), and book The Unknown Face of Feliks Nowowiejski: The Piano Works, published by VDM in Germany.

Magdalena Adamek graduated in the piano class from the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw in 2000 under tutelage of Professor Barbara Hesse-Bukowska. In 2006 she completed her Doctor of Music in Piano Performance degree at the University of Alberta in Edmonton under supervision of Professor Jacques Després. Dr. Adamek also worked under the guidance of such renown pianists as Halina Czerny-Stefanska, Andrzej Jasinski, Paul Badura-Škoda, Stêphane Lemelin, Kyoko Hashimoto, and Kevin Fitz-Gerald.

She has been a recipient of numerous prestigious scholarly and performing awards including Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship, Dissertation Fellowship, Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Award, FS Chia PhD Scholarship, Beryl Barns Memorial Graduate Scholarship, Harriet Snowball Winspear Graduate Prize in Performing Arts scholarship (University of Alberta), and also Marek Jablonski Piano Scholarship for the Banff International Keyboard Festival and a scholarship by Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (awarded twice). Her projects have been also supported by Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies, The Polonia Foundation of Alberta, Polish Culture Society in Edmonton, Polish Federation of Women in Edmonton,  Polish Combatants Society of Edmonton, Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Vancouver, and Alberta Registered Music Teachers’ Association.

Magdalena Adamek-Kurgan has been a laureate of the 2nd prize and a special distinction for the best performance of piano works by Frederick Chopin at International Milosz Magin Piano Competition in Paris, 3rd prize in the piano trio category at Kiejstut Bacewicz International Chamber Music Competition in Lódz, Poland, 3rd prize at the National Piano Competition in Warsaw, and distinction at the National Chamber Music Competition in Warsaw. She also represented Poland at the II European Piano Forum at Hochschule der Künste in Berlin.

Adamek’s discography includes five compact discs for an independent Polish label Acte Prèalable with works of such composers as Feliks Nowowiejski, Milosz Magin, Romuald Twardowski, Jozef Elsner. The latest recording project involves a CD Romantic Central Europe, which was made in collaboration with the Wirth Institute of Austrian and Central European Studies at the University of Alberta and contains piano works by Carl Czerny, Franz Schubert, Frederick Chopin, and Feliks Nowowiejski. Magdalena Adamek’s performances have been broadcast on CBC, Polish National Radio, Radio France, and ABC Radio Classic FM.

Since June 2005 Magdalena Adamek-Kurgan has served on the Board of the Marek Jablonski Fund, which supports young musical talents in Alberta. .

Apart from being an active performer Magdalena Adamek has been collaborative pianist at Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, piano instructor at The Stanislaw Moniuszko Warsaw Music Society Music School, piano instructor, chamber music instructor, and collaborative pianist at The University of Alberta in Edmonton, and Collaborative Pianist at String Quartet Program at S.U.N.Y Fredonia, led by widely respected violinist and Professor of Violin at Eastman School of Music, Charles Castleman. In addition to performing, Magdalena Adamek has been active in the Edmonton community as adjudicator and workshop presenter.

For more information please contact Department of Music

Dr.Magdalena Adamek

Piano Instructor, RMT

music@ualberta.ca

780-492-3611

Event URL:

www.music.ualberta.ca