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The Polish pianist, Elżbieta Stefańska, received her first piano lessons from her father Ludwik Stefański, professor at the Music Academy Cracow. Her extraordinary musical talent became aparent already at an early age. In 19.. she graduated from the National Music University Cracow in the harpsichord class. Her teacher was the famous German Professor Hans Pischner from Berlin. In the following years she improved her musical proficiency at various international master-classes in Siena and Weimar, under the guidance of eminent European harpsichord player - such as Zuzana Ruzickova or Ruggero Gerlin. Her first two prizes were awarded to her at the Ancient Music Competition, Łódź, for her piano and harpsichord performance of Baroque works. 1965 she won the First Prize at the International Music Competition in Geneva, where she was also honoured with the special Henri Ghez reward as the best harpsichard player. Among her awards and prizes are also the City of Cracow Prize for actistic achievements, awarded to the Baroque Trio of which she was a member and "Laurel Of Cbacow Music Lovers" granted to her "in testimony of their gratitude and appreciation for having made classic music widely known".
Elżbieta Stefańska frequently perfozms in Poland and abroad in Europe, Asia, America. She regularly plays as a soloist or a chamber music performer at prestigious music festivals, for example in Hannover, Halle (Händel Festival), Leipzig (Bachfest Leipzig), Brno, Bratislava, Shiraz (Iran), Orvieto, Interlaken (Switzerland), Gaming (Austria), Paris etc.
Her repertoire comprises solo music and chamber music works of the Benaissance, the Baroque and the Classic Epochs as well as the 20th century, including acient and contemporary Polish composers. Elżbieta Stefańska has often played for radio and TV recording as well as for Polish and international Centres such as Polskie Nagrania, EMI, Elektrola, Decca, Fonit Cetra. From 1974 to 1982, she was appointed by contract as soloist with the Polish Broadcasting and TV Centre.
Elżbieta Stefańska has often been invited to be on the jury of Polish and international music competitions such as the Wanda Landowska 1st Harpsichord Competition Cracow (1985) of which she was both the organizer and a jury member, the International Harpsichord Competition, Munich (1970), the Bach Competition, Leipzig (1992), the International Harpsichord Competition, Warsaw (1993), the Polish National Guitar Competitions (1986-1987) and the Piano Competition in Taipei (Taiwan) in 1990
Elżbieta Stefańska is a Professor at the Music University of Cracow where she leads the harpsichord class and where, from 1981 to 1990, she was Head of the Department of Clavecin and Ancient Instruments. Since 1990 she has frequently been invited to give concerts and to play for TV and radio recording in Japan, South Corea and Taiwan. In the Mozart Year she played 18 Mozart sonatas (6 CD's) using an ancient Mozart piano for the Pony Canyon sonographic company in Tokyo. For the same company she also recorded numerous works by J.S. Bach composed for hapsichord. |
