Polish composer Hanna Kulenty has a new official YouTube channel. Here visitors will find full versions of nearly all of her compositions, performed by such excellent ensembles as: Kronos Quartet, ensemble ‘de ereprijs’, trumpeter Marco Blaauw, NOSPR, Wrocław Chamber Orchestra “Leopoldinum,” and many more. There are already around 75 works available—categorized by works for symphony orchestra, stage and opera, solo instruments, duo and trio, ensemble, percussion, and quartet and quintet—and new works will be added regularly.
Hanna Kulenty (born on March 18, 1961 in Białystok, Poland) is a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. Since 1992 she has lived both in Warsaw (Poland) and in Arnhem (The Netherlands). From 1980 to 1986 she studied composition with Włodzimierz Kotoński at the Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw. From 1986 to 1988 she studied composition with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague. She participated in several summer courses in contemporary music composition in Kazimierz and Darmstadt, including lectures by lannis Xenakis, Witold Lutosławski, Thomas Kessler and François Bernard Mâche. Kulenty’s compositions are published by the Dutch publishing house Donemus.
In 1985 Kulenty was awarded the second prize of the European Young Composers’ Competition organized in Amsterdam with Ad Unum for orchestra (1985). In 1987 she was awarded the second prize by the Young Composers’ Competition of the Polish Composers’ Union [ZKP] with Ride for 6 percussionists (1987). She was also awarded prizes in the Composers’ Competition from the Warsaw branch of ZKP: Quinto for 2 piano’s (1986), first prize; Breathe for string orchestra (1987), first prize; Cannon for violin and piano (1988), third prize; aaa TRE for viola, cello and double bass (1988), second prize 1989. In 2003 her Trumpet Concerto (2002) won the first prize at UNESCO’s 50th International Rostrum of Composers, for which she received the UNESCO Mozart Medal from the International Music Council. Her compositions Preludium, Postludium and Psalm for cello and accordion (2007) and String Quartet No. 3 – Tell me about it (2008), were respectively chosen among the ten best Dutch compositions of 2007 and 2008 during the ‘Toonzetters’ contest in Amsterdam.
Read Kulenty’s full biography at www.hannakulenty.com
[Sources: press release from Martin Majoor, youtube.com, hannakulenty.com]