Between Tradition and Innovation: Anna Kijanowska on Mazurkas, Research, and an Award-Winning Artistic Journey
- Jan 10
- 8 min read
Updated: Jan 18
Polish-American pianist Anna Kijanowska received the Platinum Prize in the Professional: Age 22+ category at the Golden European Piano Awards 2025, part of the European Classical Music Awards 2025 Fourth Quarter season, which ran from 24 July to 24 October 2025, with results announced on 13 November 2025. She also received the Region Representative Special Prize (Cieszyn, Poland) and was named Artist of the Month.
Following this recognition, we spoke with Anna Kijanowska to explore the artistic vision, long-term research, and creative commitment behind her award-winning video performance. In the interview below, she reflects on the origins of the project, her interpretive approach to contemporary mazurkas, and the broader musical journey that has shaped her work as a performer, scholar, and educator. She also shares her perspectives on today’s evolving musical landscape, future artistic goals, and her experience participating in an online international competition.
Could you share the background of your award-winning video performance? When and where did you record it, and how did you choose the repertoire?
Anna Kijanowska:
"The award-winning recording represents a three-year artistic journey that was both intellectually rigorous and personally meaningful. The project originated from my longstanding engagement with Polish music, particularly the mazurka genre, whose roots lie in Polish folk traditions.
This sustained interest led to the creation of 21st Mazurkas, an international artistic initiative aimed at revitalizing the mazurka and reintroducing it to contemporary audiences and global concert stages through newly commissioned works. As part of this project, I commissioned nearly thirty mazurkas from distinguished composers from around the world, transforming the initiative into a genuinely global artistic endeavor. Twenty-five of these newly composed works were recorded during an intensive three-day recording session on a Fazioli concert grand piano.
Conceptually, 21st Mazurkas continues my lifelong artistic and scholarly engagement with the mazurka genre. It also follows two earlier recordings devoted to this repertoire: Szymanowski’s Mazurkas (DUX 417) and Polish Mazurkas (DUX 1868). Taken together, these projects reflect a sustained research trajectory and an evolving artistic dialogue with the genre."
Could you reflect on your approach to this award-winning performance? What artistic or technical considerations shaped your interpretation, and what were the most crucial elements in bringing the performance to life?
Anna Kijanowska:
"The most decisive factors shaping this award-winning performance were the culmination of more than twenty years of research and performance practice in Polish music—particularly the mazurka genre—combined with a deep and sustained engagement with contemporary repertoire. An informed interpretation of these works requires not only technical command, but also a comprehensive understanding of Polish folk traditions, rhythmic nuance, and stylistic authenticity.
Equally essential was my familiarity with contemporary compositional languages, diverse stylistic approaches, and current aesthetic tendencies. The newly commissioned mazurkas demand an interpreter capable of navigating both historical idioms and modern musical syntax. Without an intimate knowledge of Polish folk music and a broad understanding of contemporary musical practices, a convincing and compelling interpretation would not have been possible. It is precisely at the intersection of tradition and innovation that this performance found its artistic vitality."
Could you tell us about your musical journey, your future goals, and your perspective on what defines a great musician today? What do you see as the most significant challenges facing musicians now and in the coming years?
Anna Kijanowska:
"My musical journey has been profoundly rewarding, and I am grateful that music has enabled me not only to develop artistically, but also to contribute meaningfully to society. Through performance, I have traveled extensively across Europe, the United States, South America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, performing in locations as diverse as Te Anau in New Zealand, Inner Mongolia, the Amazon Basin in Brazil, and, most recently, Venezuela—destinations I would likely never have encountered outside a concert career.
I grew up in a small town in Poland and first came to the United States as a scholarship student at Boise State University, supported by the Madeleine Forte Foundation. Shortly thereafter, I moved to New York City to pursue advanced studies with the legendary pianist Byron Janis at the Manhattan School of Music, where I earned my Doctorate. This transition was challenging. When I arrived in the United States at the age of twenty-three, I spoke no English and possessed only limited financial resources provided by my parents. Through perseverance, sustained effort, and the support of exceptional mentors, I was able to build an international career.
Since then, I have made debuts in major concert halls in the United States, performed with orchestras worldwide, and released recordings that have received critical acclaim, including recognition from The New York Times. I am also the recipient of numerous awards, scholarships, and grants, for which I remain deeply grateful.
In today’s digital age, I believe that a great musician must balance artistic integrity with adaptability—maintaining depth, authenticity, and excellence while engaging with rapidly evolving platforms of communication and performance. Among the most significant challenges facing musicians today are sustaining artistic quality in an environment driven by immediacy and visibility, securing long-term support for creative work, and preserving meaningful engagement with audiences in an increasingly virtual landscape.
My future artistic goals center on the creation of innovative projects that respond to contemporary artistic discourse and to the urgent needs of our planet. I am particularly interested in initiatives that address environmental, social, and cultural responsibility through music and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Currently, I am developing an EU-funded project entitled Eco-Music (Eko-Muzyka), an interdisciplinary artistic and educational initiative designed to raise ecological awareness through music, the arts, and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. The project treats music as a medium for reflection on the relationship between humanity and nature, as well as on the consequences of human activity in the era of climate crisis.
In addition, I have recently been awarded a grant for a project dedicated to rediscovering and promoting the works of overlooked and forgotten Polish female composers. This initiative, entitled In the Shadow of Fame (W cieniu sławy), seeks to restore these composers to the concert repertoire and contribute to a more inclusive and historically informed musical canon.
Contemporary music remains one of my enduring artistic interests. I am particularly eager to further explore the piano sonatas of Avner Dorman, whose works continue to inspire me through their rhythmic vitality, structural clarity, and expressive depth.
Alongside these projects, my ongoing commitments include international concert touring, the presentation of masterclasses worldwide, and teaching at the University of Silesia, where I serve as Professor. Pedagogy and mentorship remain central to my artistic mission, allowing me to shape future generations of musicians while remaining actively engaged in performance and research."
Would you like to share your experience participating in our competition and acknowledge anyone you would like to thank?
Anna Kijanowska:
"Participating in an online competition was both enjoyable and reflective of the profound transformation that the musical profession has undergone. I vividly recall earlier decades, when competitions required extensive travel by train, plane, and bus, often under demanding conditions.
Today, online competitions allow artists to work in far more suitable and humane circumstances, facilitating thoughtful preparation and high-quality artistic presentation. The possibility of creating recordings in controlled and supportive environments has fundamentally reshaped the competition experience. I found the entire process highly rewarding and greatly appreciated the opportunity to participate. I wholeheartedly recommend this type of competition, as it offers musicians both artistic freedom and equitable conditions for performance.
I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to all the composers who took part in the 21st Mazurkas project, as well as to the DUX producers—particularly the outstanding recording engineer Małgorzata Polańska—for their continued support, professionalism, and artistic expertise."
Biography
The Polish-American pianist Anna Kijanowska (key-en-OFF-ska) has established herself as a multi faceted musician, smoothly transitioning among her roles as a performing and recording artist, pedagogue, coach, and advocate of contemporary classical music around the world. She has performed, taught and collaborated in North and South America, Asia, Europe, New Zealand, Africa and Australia.
Hailed by The New York Times (2007) as “an excellent young Polish pianist.” Kijanowska’s concert performances represent the stunning diversity of today’s globalized classical music scene; she is equally at home performing in Carnegie Hall as the steppes of Mongolia. Her New York debut took place in 1997 with a live broadcast over WQXR, and she has to date appeared in Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall (NYC), and the Kennedy Center and National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C, as well as in underserved venues such as the Amazon basin in Brazil, the Himalayas in Nepal, and Mongolia.
Kijanowska’s recording of The Complete Mazurkas by Szymanowski (Dux) was praisedby Adrian Corleonis of Fanfare Magazine "as superior to any other interpretations that came before or after her" and received favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic from the New York Times and BBC Magazine. In 2018 Romeo Records released hersecond album “LUSH” with three sonatas by Liszt, Bacewicz and Woś. As a concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, she has appeared in major festivals in Europe and USA, including the Kiev Festival and the Polish Composers Festival under the patronage of Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, as well as at the Washington International Piano Festival, InterHarmony Festival in Italy, Quartet Program at Bucknell University and SUNY Fredonia in New York. She has collaborated on these projects with several other renowned musicians, including violinists Charles Castleman, Sharon Roffman, and Ayano Ninomiya of Ying Quartet, pianist Blair McMillen of the Da Capo Chamber Players, and jazz pianist Leszek Możdżer. She has also been heard on WQXR in NYC, WNYC in New York, Chicago Radio, Radio New Zealand, SBS National Public Broadcasting in Australia, and has performed for television audiences in Poland, Ukraine, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand.
As an internationally recognized music educator, Kijanowska has been invited to present master classes, recitals and lectures at leading universities and conservatories around the world, including the Central Conservatory and the the Chinese Conservatory in Beijing, the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou, China, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and LaSalle College of Arts in Singapore, Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts in Germany, Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Sydney Konservatorium, New Zealand School of Music at the Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand, Australian National University in Canberra, Yayasan Pendidikan Musik Conservatory in Jakarta, Indonesia, North-West University in South Africa, the Conservatory in Lima, Peru, St. Thomas University in the Philippines, the Universities of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Virginia and California, Bard College in New York, Yale and Harvard University in Cambridge, among others . She is the World Piano Teachers National Association- Poland President.
Ms. Kijanowska began her musical education in Bielsko-Biała, Poland and she attended the Szymanowski Music Academy in Katowice, under the tutelage of Prof. Jozef Stompel. After receiving her Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance from the Music Academy in Wrocław, she was awarded a scholarship to study with Dr. Madeleine Forte (pupil of Alfred Cortot, Rosina Lhevinne and Wilhelm Kempff) at Boise State University in the United States. She holds a Doctorate and a Master of Music in Piano Performance from the Manhattan School of Music in New York, where she studied with Byron Janis (pupil of Vladimir Horowitz and Rosina Lhevinne), Mykola Suk (pupil of Lev Vlasenko), Sara Davis Buechner (pupil of Rudolf Firkušný and Mieczysław Munz) and Marc Silverman. In 2019 she was awarded Habilitation Degree from the Music Academy in Gdańk, Poland.
Ms. Kijanowska is Assistant Professor at the Music Institute of the Silesian University in Cieszyn and is a former faculty member of the College of William and Mary, Richmond University in Virginia, University of Nevada in Las Vegas, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and the Levine School of Music in Washington D.C.
Website: www.AnnaKijanowska.com
