prof. dr hab. Marta Kierska-Witczak

A graduate from the institutions of higher musical education in Wrocław (honours diploma, 1990) and Bydgoszcz, and a professor of music arts (2011). She is the head of the Church Music Chair at the Karol Lipinski Academy of Music in Wrocław, where she is also a director of the Doctoral School. She has been a jury member of many international and national music competitions and the director of the International Choir Conducting Competition TOWARDS POLYPHONY (since 2008), the jury of which she has been president since 2014.

She has cooperated with ensembles at numerous European academies (Bulgaria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Spain) as well as with various choirs of Wrocław, with whom she has received dozens of awards and honourable mentions (including individual awards). In the years 1993-2015, she was the artistic director of the Consonanza Chamber Choir of the Wrocław University of Technology, with whom she has given hundreds of concerts with varied repertoires – from the medieval monody to contemporary choral and instrumental works, has participated in numerous festivals and competitions (Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, France, North Macedonia, Germany, Portugal, Hungary, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium), and has made recordings. Former members of her choirs perform on stages in Poland, other European countries, and the USA.

As a member of the Polish Section of AISGre, scientific boards of musical associations, and the governing body of the Society of Polish Church Musicians, she has worked on raising the standards of liturgical music. She initiates concert cycles and festivals as well as specialist conferences and workshops. She also directs other ensembles, teaches young conductors and organists, and popularizes forgotten musical works found at Silesian monasteries. In addition, she is an author of many articles on choral performance and an editor of several publications on sacred music.