Study Music in Poland?

Hi everyone,
I live in NY State, USA. I have a nephew (who also lives here) who wants to go on to college to study music. He is a senior in high school this year, turning 18 in December, has very good grades and plays at least 5 musical instruments. He's been active in the school band ever since he entered high school, as well as in other activities. I think he's a good catch for any university.

So I'm wondering: Are there good music schools (universities) in Poland? If so, where? Do they offer scholarships to American students who want to study abroad?

If anyone has any ideas about this, would you please respond? I'd appreciate any input I can get on this topic.
Thank you very much!
Rakky

It is ranking from 2007

1) Akademia Muzyczna w Warszawie
chopin.edu.pl/angielskie
2) Akademia Muzyczna w Katowicach
am.katowice.pl/Pages/general.html
3) Akademia Muzyczna we Wrocławiu
amuz.wroc.pl/index_e.html

Polish musicians are very good and we have results of the education standarts.

There are 8 university level public music schools in Poland. The problem is that I don't think they offer studies in English.

Thank you, ski and Grzerorz_.



What about the other 8? Are there any good ones in Krakow, or nearby to Krakow?


Does anyone know of any exceptions to this? My nephew does not (yet) speak Polish.

There is academy in Krakow.

amuz.krakow.pl/en/?web=sokrates
They do have foreign students and IMO they should have courses in english.

Again - thank you. I will investigate.

Here you have all of them:

Akademia Muzyczna im.Feliksa Nowowiejskiego w Bydgoszczy
amuz.bydgoszcz.pl

Akademia Muzyczna im. Stanisława Moniuszki w Gdańsku
amuz.gda.pl

Akademia Muzyczna w Katowicach
am.katowice.pl

Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie
amuz.krakow.pl

Akademia Muzyczna im. Grażyny i Kiejstuta Bacewiczów w £odzi

Akademia Muzyczna im. Ignacego Jana Paderewskiego w Poznaniu
amuz.edu.pl/page.php/2/0/show/121

Uniwersytet Muzyczny Fryderyka Chopina w Warszawie
chopin.edu.pl

Akademia Muzyczna we Wrocławiu
amuz.wroc.pl

So there is Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Katowice, Kraków, £ódź, Poznań, Warszawa and Wrocław.

You guys are awesome! Thanks so much!

so come to POland

Thanks for the invitation! Actually, I just made my first trip to Poland, from 7/15-23/08, and loved every minute of it. I know have good friends in Gorlice, so I'll come back just as soon as I can.

There is almost 50 special school of classical music.
I have 3 Chopinowsky Award! and i can say you that the best school is in Warsaw!
Go to Mendoza School in St Petersburg ( 2km of krakow)! that 's the best!!!

If you need some help with scholarships or such, try kosciuszkofoundation.org

I do not know how exactly it works, but an e-mail would be answered quickly. I found it just yesterday and they offer scholarships to US citizens willing to study abroad. :)

Pozdrawiam

Polish musical education is very conservative. If your nephew is into Bach or Chopin, it will be OK for him to study in Poland. But if he's more into Stockhausen or Boulez, he'd better stay out of Poland and go there only once a year for Warsaw Autumn.

I have some experience working with or observing the work of classically trained musicians and I think Polish musical education is limiting. Improvisation and creativity is not encouraged. Many of those people can only play by notes and if they don't have everything written down, they get lost. It is not only my opinion (I'm a musician with no formal education) but also one shared e.g. by my conductor who's getting her second degree in music.

Of course, to a creative person, musical education can do no harm and only help, but I wouldn't count for learning anything more than technique, theory and history of music until the 19th century. Sorry to say this, but most classically trained musicians I know are too conservative to understand anything that was after Schoenberg.

Thank you! I will definitely look into this.


He's definitely not. At least not that I've seen so far.
I appreciate your input on this subject. My guess is that he and his parents will have little interest in having him study abroad, but I wanted to make all opportunities available to him, just in case. Besides, if he was attending school in Krakow I'd have reason to come to visit more often.

Rakky, and what kind of formal musical education has he got? It's not so easy to get into a music academy.

I'm learning that. I know he plays a number of instruments, but doubt that he has the formal training that might be required for admission. I think he has the potential to be a talented musician, but he seems to lack the work ethic and dedication that it would require. Still, I intend to keep prompting him to be more than he seems to be satisfied with being right now.

Thank you for your concern and your valuable input, Switezianka. (By the way, I'd love to know the story behind your screen name, and what it means.)

The papers are usually not required, but some skills taught at music schools are. For studying instruments he will most probably have to:
-prepare some pieces at home and present them (the Academy will name several pieces to choose from)
-get some unknown notes and an hour or two to prepare another piece or set of pieces
-have an exam in a vista playing

So, if he can't play a vista, he can forget about it.


There is a Romantic narrative poem by Mickiewicz called "Świtezianka", and Świtezianka is most probably the name of a kind of a deamon who lives in the lake of Świteź. Or it's also a species of dragonfly.

I knew it would be good!
So which are you? Demon? Dragonfly? Both?

Deamon. A true Slavic one ;-)

Now THAT's intriguing! What is the nature of a true Slavic deamon?

The story of the poem is the following:
A boy is in love with a mysterious girl, whom he meets every evening and who refuses to say who she is, where she lives and who her parents are. To make her tell him something about herself, he swears her eternal love, fidelity etc. She warns him against breaking the vows and goes away. The boy wanders at night and comes to the shore of the Świteź lake. There, he sees a beautiful female figure, apparently supernatural, who emerges from the water and tries to tempt him. She tells him to dump his beloved and start living with him in the lake. First he resists but finally, he follows the figure to the water, he gets to the middle of the lake, he embraces the phantom and in her face, he recognizes his mysterious beloved. She says he would burn in hell for breaking his vows and they drown together in the water.

In the end it is said that every night her ghost (or herself, or whatever) is dancing on the surface of the water and his ghost suffers and moans on the shore.

And most probably the name of the poem is the name of that girl/deamon/ghost.

Thank you very much for sharing that with us - how very cool.
But, look, if you're trying to warn people off, I think you're doing a pretty darn good job of it. >-)
You're clearly an educated and cultured young woman (at least, based on your avatar). It's very nice to meet you. Are you an artist? writer? musician? all of the above?

Getting back to:


I'm pretty sure all of this is beyond my nephew's level. I doubt he has the drive to bring himself to that level, either. It's a common character defect in my family - we do just about as much as we need to, and not much beyond that. Fortunately for me, a few of us have overcome it, but I'm no standout, either.

So, maybe he should


Oh, thank you...


I sing, write and compose music but not professionally... yet ;-)
I'm thinking about reviving my darkwave project now, so I need to unearth my scores and do something.

I think your nephew could study something like Artistic Education on a university but I don't know if he can do it without the knowledge of Polish. The only thing you can study at a music academy without too much formal preparations is vocal.

When you're ready to start I have a young friend in Gorlice/Krakow who is fully prepared to record and mix your CD. Let me know if you'd like his contact information. He's in his fifth year of university this year and just returned from a trip to America where he purchased a LOT of recording and engineering equipment, so he has a "mobile studio" all ready to go.


You say that as if I should know what it means, but, I'm sorry, I do not. What does this mean?


I think he needs a couple of years at an American college before he would be ready for an academy. Thank you again for sharing your insights with me.

To put it simply - some creepy goth stuff based on electronics.
But I use some experimental-classical elements of composition in that stuff so it's even harder to listen :)

You MUST hook up with my friend in Krakow. He is very big on composers, composition, "church music" and choruses. I think you'd get along quite well. You're not already in Krakow, by any chance, are you?

By the way - I just saw one of your postings in another thread in which you identify yourself as an atheist. Me too. Raised by a VERY Catholic mother and (as I found out only a few years ago) an atheist father. Rejected all religion in my early teens when I realized what a crock it all was.