Jan Maklakiewicz

Jan Maklakiewicz was born on November 24, 1899 at Chojnata in the Mazowsze region of Poland; he died on February 7, 1954 in Warsaw. Maklakiewicz was a composer, conductor, teacher, critic and publicist. After initial studies with his father, a country organist, he went to Warsaw to study, first at the Chopin Music School with Biernacki (harmony), Szopski (counterpoint) and Binental (violin) and later at the Conservatory of Music (1922-25) with Statkowski (composition). In the years 1926-27 he completed his composer's studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris under Paul Dukas. After his return to Poland he became engaged in composition and was also active as an organizer of musical events, having founded a number of choral ensembles. He was also engaged in teaching, as well as in musical journalism. In the years 1927-29 at the conservatory in Łódz he was in charge of the school choir and lectured on theory of music. From 1929 until his death he was a teacher at the Conservatory in Warsaw. In 1932 he was appointed organist of the Holly Cross, Warsaw, where he also worked as a choirmaster and music critic. After the Second World War, as a musical publicist he contributed reviews and articles to some newspapers and magazines, such as "Daily Morning," "Music," "Choir" and "Polish Daily." In the years 1945-47 he was director of the State Philharmonic in Cracow and then, from 1947-48, he occupied the same position in Warsaw, also lecturing on composition and instrumentation at the State Higher School of Music. He wrote a great deal of church music in the 1930s and a number of mass songs after the war. Many of his works are based on folk themes. Maklakiewicz received the State Music Award in 1932 for his Cello Concerto, the First Prize at the Kronenberg Competition in 1933 for his violin Concerto No. 1 and - posthumously - the Officer's Cross of the Order of Poland's Revival (Polonia Restituta).

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