The Piano Sonatas of Robert Muczynski
See Also: Abstract Works List
by Valerie Cisler
Robert Muczynski was born in Chicago on March 19, 1929. His father's parents' emigrated from Warsaw, Poland to Chicago; his mother was of Slovak descent, moving to the U.S. in 1910. He studied piano with Walter Knupfer and composition with Alexander Tcherepnin at DePaul University in Chicago, where he received the Bachelor of Music degree (1950) and the Master of Music degree (1952). Both degrees were in Piano Performance. At his Carnegie Hall debut in 1958 he presented a program of his own piano works.
Internationally recognized, Muczynski's works appear with increasing frequency on programs in the US, Europe, the Far East, Australia and Mexico. Orchestral works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony of Washington, D.C., the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and others abroad.
Muczynski's awards include two "Young Composer's Project" Fellowship Grants from the Ford Foundation (1959, 1961); a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from De Paul University, Chicago; the International Society for Contemporary Music Prize for the "Suite for Piano" (1961); and the Concours Internationale Prize, in Nice, France, for the "Sonata for Flute and Piano" (1961). "A Summer Journal" was awarded "Best of the Year 1966" by "Piano Quarterly" in its fourteenth annual list of exceptional teaching pieces. In 1982, his "Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Chamber Orchestra" was nomintated for a Pulitzer Prize.
In addition to awards, Muczynski has received a great number of commissions throughout his career: The Fromm Foundation; the Louisville Orchestra; Thor Johnson and the Chicago Little Symphony; Howard Mitchell and the National Symphony of Washington, D.C.; the Linton String Trio; the Western Arts Trio; the Tucson Symphony; saxophonist Trent Kynaston; clarinetist Mitchell Lurie; the US Information Agency's Artistic Ambassadors Program; and the University of Oklahoma Wind Quintet. Muczynski has also composed scores for nine award-winning documentary films produced by the University of Arizona Film Department. Included are "The Great Unfenced," "Yankee Painter," "American Realists," Cajititlan," "The Clowns Never Laugh," "Terra Sancta: A Film of Israel," "Bellota: A Story of Roundup," and "Journey Through Eden."
Robert Muczynski has previously taught at DePaul University, Chicago; Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa; Roosevelt University, Chicago; and the University of Arizona, Tudson (composer-in-residence and chair of the composition department). His works are featured in a permanent collection at the University of Texas at Austin, Center for American Music: The Robert Muczynski Collection.
email: cislerv@unk.edu