Paweł Gusnar – saxophone

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Saxophonist, chamber musician, teacher, professor, Professor Habilitated Doctor of Musical Arts. He works at the Chopin University of Music (since 2003), where he has been Vice-Rector for Foreign Affairs since 2016 (terms 2016-2024) and of the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź. He is a member of the Council of Scientific Excellence (2024-2027). In 2023 he has been awarded the title of Guest Professor Zhejiang Conservatory of Music.

He is a versatile artist – open to various styles and forms of expression. He combines his activities in the field of classical, jazz, and entertainment music at an equally high level. His unique contributions to the composition and promotion of Polish music for that instrument include about a dozen Polish and foreign premieres every year. More than 70 works have been written specially for him by such composers as, among others, Salleras, Portejoie, Prost, Bembinow, Błażejczyk, Cieślak, Drozd, Duchnowski, Dutkiewicz, Gronau-Osińska, Herdzin, Huszcza, Kaczorowski, Karałow, Konowalski, Kościow, Moss, Możdżer, M. T. Łukaszewski, P. Łukaszewski, Pokrzywińska, Przybylski, Sielicki, and Woś. In this number there are more than a dozen pieces with orchestra (by e.g. Krzysztof Penderecki, Bronisław Kazimierz Przybylski, Krzysztof Knittel, Nikola Kołodziejczyk, Bartosz Kowalski, Krzysztof Herdzin, and Weronika Ratusińska) as well as some pioneering compositions setting new global trends. It is thanks to Gusnar that the Polish saxophone repertoire has found its way to major music centres worldwide. He also promotes Polish music by publishing a score series of his own name (The Paweł Gusnar Collection, publ.Ars Musica). He is also the author of The Orchestral Studies for Saxophone (2018).

The artist performs on stages of prestigious concert halls, both philharmonic and chamber, in Poland and abroad, also as part of significant festivals. As a soloist, he has performed with almost all philharmonic orchestras in Poland as well as with Sinfonia Varsovia, the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Amadeus Orchestra, the Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra, and many others. He co-operates with the best Polish big bands, including the ones of Adam Sztaba, Tomasz Szymuś, Krzysztof Herdzin, and the Kukla Band. He also performs as a session musician (numerous television productions and radio recordings).

He acts as a juror in numerous competitions and runs masterclasses in the best music centres in the world – from China and South Korea, through numerous European countries, to the United Arab Emirates, South Africa and the USA. His achievements encompass over 60 CDs, including nearly 20 original CDs as well as CDs of joint authorship. He has won five Fryderyk Awards (2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2023, 2024), the Armatka Kultury 2019, the Pizzicato Supersonic Award (2009), the Award of the Rector of the Chopin University of Music (2015, 2021), the First Degree Award of the Director of the Centre for Artistic Education (2018), and the Golden Diploma in the international competition Muzyczne Orły [Music Eagles] 2022. He has been nominated, among others, for the title of Coryphaeus of Polish Music (2014, 2015, 2017) and for the International Classical Music Awards 2020. He is the founder and conductor of the Warsaw Saxophone Orchestra, with which he gives concerts in Poland and abroad. He is involved in activities promoting science, culture, and art. Since 2012, he has been a member of the Council of the Phonographic Academy – classical music section. He is a Yamaha, D’Addario and JLV artist.