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Prolific, pensive and articulate," the prize-winning Peter Paul Koprowski was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1947. Noted for his early compositions as an "outstanding talent", he attended and graduated in nearly half the required time from the Krakow Academy of Music, earning awards and having his works broadcast and performed in concerts. Starting with his orchestral In Memoriam Karol Szymanowski, written when he was only sixteen, Mr. Koprowski has gone through a musical evolution of an unusual breadth. As a child prodigy he absorbed the advanced harmonic languages of Scriabin and Szymanowski and was profoundly influenced by the polyphony of the Renaissance. During this time he was also exposed to a wide range of contemporary music presented at the annual Warsaw Autumn Festival - Poland in the 1960s being like Paris fifty years earlier, in the vanguard of European music.
After a period in England, where he received further awards, Mr. Koprowski moved to Canada in 1971 and completed his doctorate at the University of Toronto. Since then his prolific output has continued with a canon extending from songs to symphonies - all commissioned works exceeding 50 in number, from orchestras, ensembles and distinguished artists such as the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet. Mr. Koprowski's works have been presented by many noted artists such as Pinchas Zukerman, Trevor Pinnock, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Okko Kamu and Wojciech Michniewski.
In 1983, Mr. Koprowski returned to Poland as a guest of the Warsaw Autumn Festival. In 1988 he was a Composer in Residence with the Canadian Opera Company. Twice, in 1989 and in 1994, he was recipient of the (Governor General of Canada) Jules Leger Prize and in 1990 was bestowed the interdisciplinary Victor Martyn Lynch-Stanton Award. In 1997 he received the Jean A. Chalmers National Music Award for four orchestral compositions: Viola Concerto, Symphony of Nordic Tales, Ancestral Voices and Saga. In 2002 his Viola Concerto received a JUNO nomination.
Currently, Peter Paul Koprowski is a professor of composition at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and divides his time between European and North American engagements as a composer and conductor.
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