History

The Academy of Music in Krakow has its origins in the Kraków Conservatory, founded by eminent Polish composer Wladyslaw Zelenski on 7 February 1888. The school suspended its activity for the duration of World War One; it then enjoyed a period of great growth in the twenty years between the two wars under Wiktor Barabasz and Boleslaw Wallek-Walewski. Closed and gone underground during the Nazi occupation of 1939-1945, it reopened on 1 September 1945 and became the State Higher School of Music as of 1 February 1946 under its first Rector, Prof. Zbigniew Drzewiecki, eminent pianist and teacher. The School developed in many areas and attained its present structure of an institution of musical education at a university level. On 28 September 1979 it was honoured for its achievements with the rank of an Academy of Music. The post of its Rector was held by some of Poland’s most eminent instrumentalists, musicologists and composers, including Prof. Stefania Lobaczewska, Prof. Bronislaw Rutkowski, Prof. Eugenia Uminska, Prof. Jan Hoffman, Prof. Jozef Chwedczuk, Prof. Dr (Honorary) Krzysztof Penderecki, Prof. Krystyna Moszumanska-Nazar, Prof. Marek Stachowski, Prof. Barbara Swiatek-Zelazna. It acquired new faculties, departments and institutes: the Institute of Musical Acoustics (1956), the Postgraduate School of Musical Editing (1966), the Department of Chamber Music (1972), the Electroacoustic Music Studio (1973), the Institute of Music Analysis (1975), the Department of Contemporary Music Performance (1991). On 1 October 2000, the Academy of Music inaugurated its new and (finally) very own premises at 41-43, St. Thomas Street.