“Kupiec plays with a rare mixture of spirit, a faultless technique, a complete understanding of musical texture and an ability to shape music with transparency and an impressive richness of colours. Her playing is brilliant but never obtrusive, full of atmosphere and subtly virtuosic.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
In Europe, Ewa Kupiec performs regularly with the major orchestras, which in recent seasons have included Orchestre de Paris, Het Residentie, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic and Warsaw Philharmonic. In 2002 she made her American debut with the Milwaukee Symphony, swiftly followed by further engagements in the USA, and this season she will make her debut with the Minnesota Orchestra. In Japan, Kupiec made her recital debut in Tokyo in 2002; in 2007 she made her debut with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony and will return in 2010. Kupiec also returns regularly to Australia and New Zealand for concerts and recital performances, with two tours scheduled for 08-09.
In her solo recital performances, Kupiec achieves an especially intimate level of communication with her audiences, a talent that is repeatedly applauded by critics. Her belief in the contact that can be achieved through the art of live performance is inherent in her approach to music-making and is the driving force behind her programme building. In the current season, Kupiec’s recital programmes are focussing on works by Chopin in the run up to the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Ewa Kupiec is recognised as one of Europe’s most dedicated interpreters of contemporary music. Her performance in 2004 of Schnittke’s First Piano Concerto with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra was the first performance of this work since 1964. This successful collaboration immediately led to a further invitation to record all of Schnittke’s works for piano and orchestra (including the concerto for four hands) which was released earlier this year. Her endeavour to bring attention to lesser known works of Polish composers has resulted in recordings of Paderewski, Szymanowski, Szpilman and Lutoslawski, as well as the complete works for solo piano and for violin and piano duo of Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969). Kupiec has further endorsed her commitment to contemporary music with her recording of “Conception”, a CD of solo works composed for her, which she co-produced herself.
The renowned Polish maestro Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, an admirer of Kupiec’s pianism, has initiated and supported an exceptionally fruitful musical collaboration between the two, and as such they have performed all over the world and recorded together. Other conductors with whom she has worked include Metzmacher, Alsop, Altrichter, Blomstedt, Boreyko, Brabbins, Janowski, Lintu, Oramo, Vasily Petrenko, Sinaisky, Varga, and Wolff.
Ewa Kupiec studied in Katowice, the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, and the Royal Academy of Music in London. She presently resides in Munich, Germany.
Ewa Kupiec is represented by Intermusica.
August 2008 / 463 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.