Director of Polish Music Center


Instruments/Expertise: Polish Music, Piano and Composition

(213) 821-1356 phone
(213) 821-4040 fax
polmusic@usc.edu
STO 122

Personal site: http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/

Biography

Marek Zebrowski was born in Poznan, Poland, and began studying piano at the age of five. After graduating with the highest honors from the Poznan Music Lyceum, he went to France, where he was a pupil of Robert Casadesus and Nadia Boulanger. Mr. Zebrowski came to the United States in 1973 and continued his studies of piano with Russell Sherman at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He has recorded works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Scriabin and Prokofiev for the Polish Radio, appeared in public television broadcasts in the United States and recorded works by Ravel and Prokofiev for Apollo Records in Germany. His performances and compositions are featured on the Titanic and Harmonia Mundi labels.

Mr. Zebrowski is also recognized worldwide as a composer. The catalogue of his compositions includes orchestral and chamber works, numerous piano compositions and transcriptions, as well as film and stage scores. He has received commissions from Meet The Composer, The New England String Quartet, and Premiere Productions and Central Europe Trust in the United Kingdom, among others. Mr. Zebrowski’s piano composition, Ex tempore, won the second prize at the 1997 International Composition Competition in The Hague, Netherlands. During the fall of 1997 Mr. Zebrowski was a recipient of the Bogliasco Fellowship in Italy, where he composed two song cycles for baritone and piano. World premieres of his latest compositions took place in The Netherlands and Italy in 1998 and in Los Angeles in 2001.

In addition to his activities as pianist and composer, Mr. Zebrowski has been a frequent lecturer for the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Harvard University and The New England Conservatory of Music, and for several years a contributing writer for the Boston Book Review. Renowned as teacher and interpreter of music, Mr. Zebrowski has given numerous master classes, coached various chamber music ensembles and chamber orchestras. His long academic career includes many years of teaching at the University of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he is currently on the faculty at UCLA.

Mr. Zebrowski is Steinway Artist.