Cezary Duchnowski

Composer, pianist and performer and lecturer, born 25 February 1971 in Elbląg. He helped found the Studio of Computer Composition at the Academy of Music, Wrocław.

In 1997, together with Marcin Rupociński, he founded the group Morphai involved in artistic initiatives of an interdisciplinary nature. He also performs together with Agata Zubel as a duo (recitals for voice and computer). Duchnowski is a great advocate of improvised music. He collaborates with jazz musicians, as well as other artists enthusiastic about live music. With Paweł Hendrich and Sławomir Kupczak, they founded the group Phonos ek Mechanes. In this group, he is active in creating a very particular kind of improvised electronic music - human-electronics, where computers are controlled by acoustic instruments.

Duchnowski studied composition in the class of Leszek Wisłocki at the Academy of Music in Wrocław. He currently also teaches at the Wrocław Academy.

Electroacoustic music has been the focus of his artistic activity for the past few years. This is connected with the need to interfere deeper with the sound matter. Hence the use of the computer, an instrument whose open potential to a large degree helps discover a new aspect of the elementary properties of music which is not burdened with any extra-musical content. Apart from composing a specific time-space, the instruments themselves can be 'composed here. Such a situation allows for an encounter with the essence of music. It makes it possible to shape its point of departure which is at the same time its conditio sine qua non - the sound which is in itself of an individual character. It is the sound which constitutes the indivisible substance of which the musical being consists. The sound is, like Leibnitz's monad, a closed cosmos.

His Monad 3 for voice, piano and computer (2003) received First Prize at the 10th International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music in Rome in May 2004. In 2005, jointly with Agata Zubel (as the ElettroVoce duo), he received the Special Award at the "Gaudeamus" International Contemporary Music Interpreters Competition in Amsterdam.