Faculty

Marta Ptaszynska, since 1998  a Professor of Music and in the Humanities, and since 2005 a Helen B.& Frank L. Sulzberger Professor in Composition, is an internationally known composer. Her music has been performed around the world at many international festivals, including ISCM World Music  Days, the Warsaw Autumn International Festivals, the Salzburg Festival, the Schleswig- Holstein Music Festival, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Prix Futura in Berlin, and many others.  She has received commissions from orchestras including Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, the Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, Polish Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, the National Symphony Orchestra and the National Opera in Poland.  Her opera for children Mister Marimba has enjoyed a phenomenal success of 114 performances for eight seasons at the National Opera in Warsaw. She is the author of such well known works as the Holocaust Memorial Cantata, performed several times under the baton of Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Concerto for Marimba, Winter’s Tale, Sonnets to Orpheus, Moon Flowers, as well as very popular compositions for solo percussion (Siderals, Graffito, Spider Walk, Space Model, Letter to the Sun).

Ptaszynska has been honored with many prizes and awards, including the 2006 Benjamin H. Danks Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Fromm Music Foundation Award, I Prize at the  International Rostrum of Composers in Paris, several awards from the Percussive Arts Society, multiple ASCAP Awards, and in 1995 the “Officer Cross of Merit” of the Republic of Poland.
Prior to the University of Chicago Ptaszynska taught composition at Northwestern University, Indiana University in Bloomington, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara, and at the Bennington College in Vermont.  

Her music is published by PWM –Polish Music Publications in Poland and by Theodore Presser in the US and is recorded on CD Accord-Universal, Muza Polish Records, Chandos, Olympia, Dux, Bayer Records, and Pro Viva Sonoton labels.

Office: Goodspeed 206
Phone: (773) 702-8663
E-mail: mptaszyn@uchicago.edu