STOJOWSKI ON THE AIR

Classical music radio station WFMT in Chicago presents a two-hour documentary entitled, A Romantic Master Rediscovered: Zygmunt Stojowski, on Sunday afternoon, August 26, at 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. [Central Daylight Time]. Produced by Jon Tolansky, the program features the music of this Post romantic composer. Tolansky holds interviews with Stojowski's two sons, Alfred and Henry, both in their nineties. Conversations with British pianist Jonathan Plowright, Polish conductor Łukasz Borowicz, and Polish-American Stojowski scholar, Joseph Herter, are also part of the program.

WFMT, found at 98.7, has live streaming for their classical music concerts, enabling the program to be heard live around the world. Since there is a seven-hour difference in time between Chicago and Warsaw, Polish listeners will have to tune-in to their computers at eleven o'clock in the evening. The station's website is found at: www.wfmt.com

Stojowski - not to be confused with the conductor Stokowski - was born in Poland where he studied with Władysław Zeleński in Cracow. Further studies took him to Paris where his teachers included Léo Delibes, Théodore Dubois, Louis Diémer, and after graduation from the Conservatoire national, Ignacy Jan Paderewski. In 1905, Stojowski relocated to New York, where he became a highly acclaimed and sought after piano pedagogue. At first a founding faculty member of the Institute of Musical Art, Stojowski later opened his own teaching studio. To mention only a few of his more famous students, the cavalcade of stars include conductor Antonia Brico, pianist Shura Cherkassy, film composer Alfred Newman, composer/pianist/entertainer Oscar Levant as well as pianists Arthur Loesser, Mischa Levitzki and Alexander Brachocki.

The Polish artist spent the last 41 years of his life in the USA where he died in 1946. Until recently, his compositions remained forgotten and unperformed. As this Stojowski documentary aims to show, though, Stojowski left a treasure trove of beautiful works that deserve to be frequently heard.

[Joseph A. Herter

joseph@warszawa.sky.pl

tel: (48) 608 60 59 59]