Marta Ptaszyńska – ‘First Woman Composer’ Lecture

This Sunday at St. Faustina’s Sanctuary in Warsaw, Polish composer Marta Ptaszyńska will present a lecture on Hildegarde von Bingen, entitled “The First Woman Composer.” In her many years of creative and teaching work—as the endowed Helen B. & Frank L. Sulzberger Professor of Composition at the University of Chicago since 2005, among other universities—Ptaszyńska has paid special attention to the figure of St. Hildegard, speaking of her as a precursor of composition.

Born in 1098, Hildegarde von Bingen was a visionary and mystic, healer, religious reformer, and a Benedictine nun and prioress. She was recognized by the Anglican, Evangelical, Old Catholic and Roman Catholic Churches as a saint in 2012.