Hanna Kulenty

Hanna Kulenty (born March 18, 1961, in Białystok) is a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. Since 1992, she has worked and lived both in Warsaw (Poland) and in Arnhem (Netherlands).

Musical education

After studying piano at the

From 1989 Kulenty worked as a free-lance composer, and received numerous commissions and scholarships. She has composed 2 operas and 12 works for large orchestra. She has written numerous works for solo instruments and chamber groups. Since 2007 she is also involved in writing music for television plays and for film.

In 1990 she was for one-year guest composer at the

She was a jury member during Munich Biennale in 1995, during the Gaudeamus International Composers Award 2002 in Amsterdam, during the Kazimierz Serocki 9th International Composers’ Competition in Warsaw (2003), during the International New Chamber Opera Competition "Orpheus-Luciano Berio 2003–2004" in Spoleto, and in 2005 and 2007 during the International Competition of Contemporary Chamber Music in Cracow.

Style and technique of composition

"Hanna Kulenty’s music is permeated with images of organic transformation and growth. The intuitive shaping of evolving sound patterns, extended phrases and richly detailed textures in these works results from Kulenty’s original compositional technique which she calls ‘the polyphony of arches’ or ‘arcs’. The works include many layers of simultaneous ‘arches’ which may begin at different points of their trajectories and proceed at different speeds.

Her compositional style has evolved during the years since her dazzling orchestral debut, Ad Unum, a powerful, dissonant, dramatic and well-crafted study of convergence towards musical unity. Since that work, Kulenty's preferred medium has been the symphony orchestra.

Through the 1990s the composer developed an original version of ‘post-minimalist’ style, characterized by a reduction of the number and density of musical layers, in comparison with the earlier, saturated and dramatic style of the ‘polyphony of arches’. She called this style her version of the ‘European trance music’. Kulenty seldom used sudden textural cuts and shifts in this period. Instead, she often structured her compositions as single, powerful arches, slowly evolving in time, gradually increasing their gripping intensity of emotion.

Her penchant for musical drama and intensity of emotion found a suitable expression in her music for stage. The ‘intuitive constructivism’ coupled with a heightened emotional intensity of her music is well-suited for highlighting dramatic situations. Kulenty's mastery of time and her ability to structure her musical material into layers moving inexorably, inevitably towards powerful climaxes brings a symphonic dimension to her other theatrical compositions.

Kulenty's latest compositional technique of the ‘polyphony of time dimensions’ emphasizes the circularity of time and the simultaneity of time-events occurring on different temporal planes."^[1]

Awards

In 1985 Kulenty was awarded the second prize of the European Young Composers’ Competition organized in Amsterdam with Ad Unum for orchestra (1985).

In 1987 she was awarded the Stanislaw Wyspianski Award (2nd class).

In the same year she was awarded the second prize by the Young Composers’ Competition of the Polish Composers’ Union with Ride for 6 percussionists (1987).

She was also awarded prizes in the Composers’ Competition from the Warsaw branche of the Polish Composers’ Union: Quinto for 2 piano's (1986), first prize; Breathe for string orchestra (1987), first prize;Cannon for violin and piano (1988) third prize; aaa TRE for viola, cello and double bass (1988) second prize 1989.

In 2003 her composition Trumpet Concerto (2002) won the first prize at the 50th International Rostrum of Composers, for which she received the UNESCO Mozart Medal from the International Music Council.

Her compositions Preludium, Postludium and Psalm, for cello and accordion (2007) and String Quartet No. 3 – Tell me about it (2008), were respectively chosen among the ten best Dutch compositions of 2007 and 2008 during the ‘Toonzetters’ contest in Amsterdam.

About the performances

Kulenty's compositions have been premiered at festivals throughout the world, such as the

• Arcus (1988) – three percussionists
• aaa TRE (1988) – viola, cello, double bass
• A Cradle Song (1993) – violin, cello, piano
• A Fourth Circle (1994) – violin (or viola/cello) and piano
• A Sixth Circle (1995) – trumpet, piano
• Asjaawaa (2001) – mezzo-soprano, flute, harp, piano, percussion, electronics
• Blattinus (1996) – saxophone quartet
• Brass No. 2 (2005) – for horn and trumpet
• Cannon (1988) – violin, piano
• Crossing Lines (2001) – violin, clarinet, piano
• Decimo (2000) – for choir, six voices
• Going Up 1 (1995) – violin, double bass
• Kisses & Crosses (2007) – for piano and percussion
• Lysanxia (1994) – gamelan, tape
• MM-blues (1999) – two piano's and two percussions
• Preludium, Postludium and Psalm (2007) – for cello and accordion
• Quinto (1986) – two pianos
• Rainbow 3 (2003) – flute, bass clarinet, piano[3]
• Rapidus (1998) – saxophone quartet
• Ride (1987) – six percussionists
• Run (2004) – flute and piano
• Sierra (1996) – violin, cello
• Stretto (1998) – flute, clarinet, cello, guitar
• String Quartet no. 1 (1984)
• String Quartet No. 2 (1990)
• String Quartet No. 3 – Tell me about it (2007)
• String Quartet No. 4 (A Cradle Song) (2007)
• Tap-Blow-Dance4* (2020) 2 bass clarinets, violoncello, vibraphone [12']^[4][5]
• Sugar-Fela Tango (2009) – for piano and four instruments
• Tell me about it 1 (2006) – for clarinet, cello, trombone and piano
• Tell me about it 2 (2006) – for bass clarinet, cello, trombone and contra bas
• Waiting for… (1997) – voice, piano

Solo instruments

• Arci (1986) – percussion solo
• A Fifth Circle (1994) – alto flute with delay
• A Third Circle (1996) – piano solo
• Brass No. 1 (2004) – trumpet solo
• Brass No. 2 (2004) – horn and trumpet
• Brass No. 3 (2005) – horn solo or trumpet solo
• Brass No. 4 (2007) – tuba solo
• Cadenza (1992) – violin solo with delay
• Drive Blues (2000) – piano solo
• E for E (1991) – harpsichord solo
• Harmonium (1999) – harmonium solo
• One by One (1988) – marimba solo
• Preludium and Psalm (2007) – harmonium solo or another keyboard instrument
• Sesto (1985) – piano solo
• Sinequan (1993) – cello solo with optional delay
• Sinequan (rev. 1993) – cello solo with delay
• Still Life with a Cello (1993) – cello solo
• Still Life with a Violin (1985) – violin solo
• Three Minutes for the Double Bass (1983) – double bass solo

Electroacoustic music

• Prośba o Słońce [Request for the Sun] (1984) – electroacoustic tape
• Souvenir from a Sanatorium (1988) – computer music

See also

• Polish composers
• Music of Poland
• List of Poles
• List of 20th century classical composers by birth date

Notes