dr Ilona Iwańska
In 2009, she graduated with honours from the Academy of Music in Krakow, where she studied Theory of Music, spending one semester at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in the United Kingdom (2008). Both her MA and PhD theses were prepared under the supervision of prof. M. Tomaszewski. She also pursued Comparative Studies at the Faculty of Polish Studies, Jagiellonian University.
Her research interests focus on music from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to the present day. She is particularly interested in tonal and harmonic issues (including the neo-Riemannian approach), expression and word-tone relationships (especially in art song repertoire), and is currently working on a project concerning Polish art songs after 1937.
Iwańska has taken part in numerous Polish and international musicological conferences in Poland and abroad, and published one book (Tonality – Expression – Semantics. Studies on the Song of the Time of Modernism, 2020) and several dozen articles, essays, interviews and concert programme notes in Polish and English.
Since 2009, she has been working at the Chair of Theory and Analysis of Musical Work at the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Krakow (currently as an assistant professor), where she teaches, among others, Functional and Modern Harmony (in Polish and English), Music Analysis, Research Methodology (including at the doctoral level), and undergraduate and graduate seminars. Since 2009 she has been an editorial board member of Teoria Muzyki. Studia. Interpretacje. Dokumentacje journal. Her doctoral dissertation was rewarded by the Polish Composers’ Union (2018).
Selected Publications
Tonalność – ekspresja – semantyka. Studia nad pieśnią czasu modernizmu [Tonality – Expression – Semantics. Studies On the Song of Modernism], Academy of Music in Krakow, 2020
Book Chapters and Journal Articles (selection)
„Zrozumieć tonalność na nowo”: wokół książki Dmitriego Tymoczki „A Geometry of Music. Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice” (Oxford University Press, 2011) [„To understand tonality afresh”: On Dmitri Tymoczko’s Book „A Geometry of Music. Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice” (Oxford University Press, 2011), “Res Facta Nova” 2024, no. 34 (25)
Na tropie odwiecznych tajemnic. Alexandra Zemlinsky’ego Sześć pieśni op. 13 do słów Maurice’a Maeterlincka [On the Trail of Eternal Mysteries. Alexander Zemlinsky’s Six Songs, Op. 13 to Poems by Maurice Maeterlinck], „Teoria Muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje” 2024, no. 21, pp. 75-107
Cadential Mode and Alternating Mode, or Two Parallel Worlds of the Major-Minor Harmonic System [in:] Re-Interpreting Music. Mieczysław Tomaszewski’s Kraków School of Music Theory. Studies – Syntheses – Constructs, ed. by K. Kiwała, AMKP w Krakowie, Krakow 2022, pp. 515-531
“Kindertotenlieder” by Gustav Mahler: Towards Major Consolation [in:] Beethoven 8. Studies and Interpretations, ed. by M. Chrenkoff, AMKP w Krakowie, Krakow 2021, pp. 263-278
Major-Minor Polarity and Its Expressive-Semantic Faces. Songs by Karłowicz, Mahler and Berg, “Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology” 2018, no. 18, pp. 23-35
Jasność i ciemność, czyli tonacje krzyżykowe i bemolowe [Lightness and Darkness: Sharp and Flat Keys], “Teoria Muzyki. Studia, Interpretacje, Dokumentacje” 2018, no. 12, pp. 104-124
Modus kadencyjny i modus alternacyjny, czyli dwa równoległe światy harmoniki dur–moll [Cadential Mode and Alternative Mode, or Two Parallel Worlds of Major-Minor Harmonics] [in:] “Forum Muzykologiczne” 2017-2018, pp. 44-57
Ekspresywno-semantyczny aspekt tonalności. W kręgu liryki wokalnej modernizmu [The Expressive and Semantic Aspect of Tonality. In the Circle of Modernist Vocal Lyricism], “Teoria Muzyki. Studia, Interpretacje, Dokumentacje” 2017, no. 10, pp. 125-131
“Must a song always be a song!” On the Genre’s Antipodes or Charles Ives’s Songs [in:] Music: Function And Value, eds. T. Malecka, M. Pawłowska, Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, Musica Iagellonica, Krakow 2013, pp. 569-582
Pieśni Charlesa Ivesa inspirowane poezją anglojęzyczną [Charles Ives’ Songs Inspired by English-language Poetry], „Teoria Muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje” 2012, no. 1, pp. 159-163
Romantyków hommage dla Bacha: Schumanna, Mendelssohna i Liszta muzyka organowa [Romantics’ Homage to Bach: Organ Music by Schumann, Mendelssohn and Liszt] [in:] Słowo – Dźwięk – Muzyka, Studia Pro Musica Sacra t. VIII, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UPJPII, Kraków 2010, pp. 83-94