Krzysztof Meyer

Krzysztof Meyer first graduated from the Chopin Music High School in Krakow and then studied composition with Krzysztof Penderecki and music theory at the Academy of Music there, graduating with distinction in 1965. In 1964, 1966 and 1968 he studied for several months in France with Nadia Boulanger. From 1965 to 1967 Meyer performed as a pianist in the “Ensemble for Contemporary Music MW2” giving concerts in Poland and numerous European countries. He also performed his own compositions as a soloist. From 1966 to 1987, Krzysztof Meyer taught music theory at the State Academy of Music (now the Academy of Music) in Krakow and served as vice-rector from 1972 to 1975, holding the chair of music theory from 1975 to 1987. From 1987 to 2008 he became professor at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, where he taught a master class in composition. Meyer gave numerous lectures on New Music at home and abroad (including the Soviet Union, East and West Germany, Austria and Brazil). He was chairman of the Polish Composers’ Association from 1985 to 1989, and president of the German Shostakovich Society from 2010 to 2018. Meyer is a member of the Freie Akademie der Künste in Mannheim.

The composer, whose musical roots lie in Eastern European neoclassicism, is convinced that the time has come again to think about a new kind of melodics and harmonics. The melodic archetype being the seed for the formal design of the individual work is formative for his music. Meyer – who was personally acquainted with Dmitri Shostakovich and published one of the most important Shostakovich biographies with Gustav Lübbe Verlag - is, among other things, also a master of instrumentation.

The biography can be printed free of charge in programme booklets with the following proof: reprinted with kind permission of the music publisher Boosey & Hawkes/Sikorski