dr Ilona Iwańska
Dr Ilona Iwańska graduated with honours in Music Theory from the Academy of Music in Kraków (now the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków) in 2009, having spent a semester at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in the United Kingdom (2008). Both her MA and PhD theses were supervised by Prof. Mieczysław Tomaszewski. She also studied comparative literature at the Faculty of Polish Studies, Jagiellonian University.
Her research interests span music from the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the present, with a particular focus on tonal and harmonic issues (including neo-Riemannian theory), musical expression, and word–music relations, especially in art song. She is currently leading the individual research project The Persistence of the Lyric: Polish Song after Szymanowski (2026–2029), funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, under the SONATA 21 programme.
She has participated in numerous national and international musicological conferences. She is the author of the monograph Tonalność – ekspresja – semantyka. Studia nad pieśnią czasu modernizmu (2020), an updated English-language edition of which, entitled Tonality – Expression – Semantics. Studies in Modernist Song, is forthcoming from Springer (in press). She has also published dozens of scholarly articles, essays, interviews, and concert programme notes.
Since 2009, she has been affiliated with the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków, where she currently serves as an assistant professor in the Department of Music Theory and Interpretation. Her teaching includes harmony, music analysis, research methodology, and undergraduate and graduate seminars. She is a member of the editorial board of Teoria Muzyki. Studia. Interpretacje. Dokumentacje (Music Theory: Studies, Interpretations, Documentation) and of the Musicologists’ Section of the Polish Composers’ Union.
She has received scholarships from the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2007, 2008), the Mayor of Kraków (2009), and the Sapere Auso scholarship programme (2007, 2008). Her doctoral dissertation received the Rev. Prof. Hieronim Feicht Award from the Polish Composers’ Union (2018).
Selected Publications
Books
Tonality – Expression – Semantics. Studies in Modernist Song, Springer, Cham 2027 (in press).
Tonalność – ekspresja – semantyka. Studia nad pieśnią czasu modernizmu [Tonality – Expression – Semantics. Studies on Modernist Song], Academy of Music in Kraków, Kraków 2020.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
‘To Sing in Truth’. R. M. Rilke’s Poetry in Postwar Polish Song [in:] Beethoven 10. Studies and Interpretations, ed. by M. Chrenkoff, Penderecki Academy Press, Kraków 2027 (in press).
„Zrozumieć tonalność na nowo”: wokół książki Dmitriego Tymoczki „A Geometry of Music. Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice” (Oxford University Press, 2011) [“Understanding Tonality Anew”: 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, Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków, Kraków 2022, pp. 515–531.
“Kindertotenlieder” by Gustav Mahler: Towards Major Consolation [in:] Beethoven 8. Studies and Interpretations, ed. by M. Chrenkoff, Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków, Kraków 2021, pp. 263–278.
Modus kadencyjny i modus alternacyjny, czyli dwa równoległe światy harmoniki dur–moll [Cadential Mode and Alternating Mode, or Two Parallel Worlds of Major-Minor Harmony] [in:] Forum Muzykologiczne, ed. by B. Bolesławska-Lewandowska, Musicologists’ Section of the Polish Composers’ Union, Warsaw 2018, pp. 44–57.
Major-minor Polarity and Its Expressive-semantic Faces. Songs by Karłowicz, Mahler and Berg, “Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology” 2018, vol. 18, pp. 23–35.
Jasność i ciemność, czyli tonacje krzyżykowe i bemolowe [Light and Darkness: Sharp and Flat Keys], “Teoria Muzyki. Studia. Interpretacje. Dokumentacje” 2018, no. 12, pp. 104–124.
Ekspresywno-semantyczny aspekt tonalności. W kręgu liryki wokalnej modernizmu [The Expressive-Semantic Aspect of Tonality: 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. Proceedings of the 11th International Congress on Musical Signification, ed. by T. Malecka and M. Pawłowska, Academy of Music in Kraków – Musica Iagellonica, Kraków 2013, pp. 569–582.
Pieśni Charlesa Ivesa inspirowane poezją anglojęzyczną [Charles Ives’s 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 [The Romantics’ Homage to Bach: Organ Music by Schumann, Mendelssohn and Liszt] [in:] Słowo – Dźwięk – Muzyka, Studia Pro Musica Sacra, vol. VIII, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UPJPII, Kraków 2010, pp. 83–94.
Contact: ilona.iwanska@amuz.krakow.pl