Grażyna PSTROKOŃSKA-NAWRATIL (1947, Poland) studied composition at the State School of Music in Wrocław, first with Stefan B. Poradowski, then with Tadeusz Natanson. In 1978 she attended the lectures of Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez at the Paris Conservatory and at the IRCAM as well as the seminar dedicated to the music of Iannis Xenakis at Aix-en-Provence; she also took the training at the experimental studio in Marseilles. Since 1993 she has been professor of the Academy of Music in Wrocław, from 1991 to 2017, she headed the Department of Composition and Music Theory (now the Department of Composition) at the Academy of Music in Wrocław. Her graduates occupy an important position in Polish contemporary music.
She participated in four editions of the Programme Committee of the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music, and between 1996 and 2008 she served as programme advisor, manager and artistic director of the Musica Polonica Nova Festival of Polish Contemporary Music
Prize-winner of competitions for composers, among others, of the Young Composers' Competition of the Polish Composers' Union, the G. Fitelberg Composition Competition, the International Competition for Women Composers in Mannheim. In 1987 her Icarus was third at the UNESCO International Composers' Rostrum in Paris. In 1989 she received the City of Wrocław Award and the Polish Prime Minister's Award for her works for children and young people. She is a laureate of the Wrocław Music Award (2002) and the Polish Composers' Union Award (2004). In 2006 and 2018, she received the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Award in the field of music. In 2013, she was honoured with the silver medal Zasłużony Kulturze Gloria Artis (Meritorious to Culture Gloria Artis), and in 2017 with the Medal – Zasłużony dla Wrocławia (Meritorious to Wrocław).
The composer's output includes several dozen works, most of them in cycles. The most important of these are a cycle of large forms under the collective title freski. Her works are published by PWM Edition (Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne).
As an artist, Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil focuses on expression in her works, grounding them deeply in musical tradition and drawing inspiration from a variety of sources.
Caldera – it is the magic of the dark abyss, but also of the fabulous colours of the water that sometimes fills it. It is a unique repository of our planet’s history, the birthplace of the primordial plant kingdom. The concert consists of a single movement, unfolding in three scenes: ‘black surface’, ‘green life’ and ‘earth’s core’. – composer’s words. The piece is dedicated to Maciej Frąckiewicz – a prominent virtuoso of accordion.
The publisher of works by Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil is PWM Edition.