Maria Pomianowska

Maria Pomianowska - instrumentalist, vocalist and composer.
Graduated in cello at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw. As a student at the Academy, she was granted scholarship to learn SARANGI under the guidance of maestro Pandit Ram Narayan in India. Her artistic interests are marked by different musical systems and forms. Since 1981 she has been studying unique techniques of playing Asian instruments, travelling to India, China, Korea, Mongolia, Japan and Middle East. Between 1993-96 she conducted the Non-European Music Section at F. Chopin Music Academy, along with giving courses at Musicology Institute of the Warsaw University, which portrays the connections and differences between various musical systems. Comparative studies and multicultural experiences allowed her to undertake the highly difficult task of reconstructing and taking into consideration artistic as well as scientific values of two missing traditional Polish instruments. Together with Dr. Ewa Dahlig and violin maker A. Kuczkowski she managed to successfully reconstruct Suka from Bilgoraj and Fidel from Plock. In 1994 she established "Zespol Polski" and became its artistic director. Many CD's and TV programs made together with "Zespol Polski" confirmed the unique character of her artistic work - a respect for tradition together with an enormous amount of emotion, which is, by all means, suitable for the contemporary listener. In years 1995-2006 Zespol Polski visited Japan, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, France. In years 1997-2002 she lived in Japan where she continued her musical career. In 1999 drawing from her rich Asian experiences she composed pieces, which were ordered by a world-wide famous cellist YoYoMa. A performance of this music took place on a concert in Niigata in 2000 .There, together with YoYoMa, she presented to the public an outcome of her efforts to brake barriers between cultures by connecting her experiences with Asian music with the Polish cultural heritage. For years she has been giving lectures, organizing music workshops and promoting young musicians. In her musical journey she crosses many barriers and breaks common stereotypes. Yet she makes it with particular respect for the autonomy of each tradition from which she draws her inspiration.
Since 2008 the artist has been touring the world’s greatest concert halls, accompanying the legendary Russian musician Boris Grebenschikov and his international band “Aquarium”.
Maria Pomianowska has been the author of the radio show Asian Music broadcast by Channel II of the Polish Radio, which she started in 2008. She also created the artistic scenario of the exhibition “Chopin in love. Mazovian inspirations”, which was organised by the Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw. In 2010, with the help of Mazowsze and Chopin2010, she has recorded a new CD titled “Chopin on 5 continents”, with unique arrangements of Chopin’s masterpieces written for ethnic instruments from all over the world.