Maria Sławek
Polish violinist, lecturer and researcher. Co-founder (with Ania Karpowicz) of the Mieczysław Weinberg Institute, Doctor of Fine Arts. She teaches violin at the Academy of Music in Cracow and at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, and a course in Jewish Music as part of the post-graduate Polish-Jewish Studies of the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
She has performed in numerous cities across Poland, Germany, Israel, Italy, France, Great Britain, Brazil, Belgium, Ukraine and the United States. In the concert season 2017/2018, Maria Sławek was a resident artist at the Karol Szymanowski Philharmonic in Cracow. Mieczysław Weinberg’s music occupies a special place in her repertoire. The violinist has recorded three CDs. In 2012, she and pianist Piotr Różański released their debut album with sonatas by R. Schumann and S. Prokofiev, published by the “Castello” Record Label and Music Agency. Three years later, the artists recorded another album with works for violin and piano by Mieczysław Weinberg, released by the “CD Accord” label. In 2019, Maria Sławek and Marcin Zdunik recorded an album titled Rejoice, also produced by the “CD Accord” record company.
Maria Sławek is a laureate of numerous scholarships from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (i.a. the “Young Poland” scholarship). In 2011, she received the “Creative Scholarship from the Mayor of the City of Cracow. She was also one of the winners of The Georg Solti Foundation Award.
In 2021, she was awarded the Artistic Scholarship of the Capital City of Warsaw.
Maria Sławek is a graduate of the Academy of Music in Cracow, where she studied violin with professor Wiesław Kwaśny. In 2015, she defended her doctoral dissertation on Mieczysław Weinberg’s sonatas for violin and piano. In 2020, she received a post-doctoral degree in Arts.
Discography
TIKTIN
Maria Sławek, Lutosławski Quartet, Tomasz Januchta
After a special event that took place at the Great Synagogue in Tykocin one autumn evening in 2023, we are now presenting you TIKTIN—an album with music performed by Maria Sławek, the Lutosławski Quartet and Tomasz Januchta. The album features outstanding works by Andrzej Panufnik, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Mieczysław Weinberg. Chamber performances of great pieces by the three great composers, recorded live in a remarkable space, give TIKTIN the feel of a close encounter between the artists and the audience.
TIKTIN is the Yiddish name for Tykocin—a charming small town at the border of Mazovia and Podlasie regions which boasts the second biggest and one of the oldest synagogues in Poland. It was there that the music of Weinberg, Panufnik and Bach—composers who have more in common that one might think— resounded on an October evening last year.
Prior to the outbreak of World War Two, Panufnik and Weinberg studied together at the Warsaw Conservatory. Young Mieczysław Weinberg was the first to perform Andrzej Panufnik’s Piano Trio. The war had a significant impact on the lives of both composers—Weinberg fled to the east, to the USSR; Panufnik emigrated to the west, to Great Britain. The home country remained present in the postwar oeuvre of both composers.
On the TIKTIN album, the pieces by two émigré composers are accompanied by the work by Johann Sebastian Bach. Both Weinberg and Panufnik held Bach in remarkably high regard—Ciaccona can be heard in The Passenger opera, Weinberg’s most widely-recognized work.
“Weinberg and Panufnik—I have thought about such an album for a long time now. When I visited Tykocin, I knew straight away that it is an ideal place to perform the violin pieces. Anyway, the Great Synagogue in Tykocin is not merely a place that welcomed us and where the concert took place—it is a performer in its own right on this record,” says Maria Sławek, a violinist and prime mover behind this musical project.
“For many years I have been popularizing the works of Polish-Jewish composers, spread the knowledge about Jewish history, music, and culture. Last year’s autumn evening in the Great Synagogue in Tykocin was a moving experience not only for me and the wonderful musicians who joined me on the stage, but also for the listeners gathered in this unique place,” says Maria Sławek.
“This album would not exist without the support of several dozen people who donated the realization of my dream through an online fundraising campaign. I am very grateful for this. Thanks to them, the sounds recorded at that time can reach a wider audience,” adds the artist.
The album was released on 22 March 2024 by Orphée Classics, in cooperation with the Mieczysław Weinberg Institute. “TIKTIN” is available on the most popular streaming platforms. You can a buy CD here.
PATRONS AND PARTNERS:
Mieczysław Weinberg Institute Foundation
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Podlaskie Museum in Białystok
National Forum of Music (NFM)
Society of Authors ZAIKS
Dwojka Polish Radio
