Marianna Bednarska

Marianna Bednarska is a young polish percussionist. She runs an active concert activity, not only as a soloist but also as a chamber music performer and orchestra musician. She is regularly invited to international music festivals and cooperates with recognized personalities of the musical world.

At the age of seven, she took first piano lessons at the Karol Szymanowski Music School in Warsaw, soon followed by classical percussion classes. As a pupil of Henryk Mikolajczyk she completed the secondary education in 2012 and continued the studies in bachelor degree with Marta Klimasara, Klaus Dreher, Jürgen Spitschka and Harald Löhle at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, where she graduated in 2017 with highest marks. In June 2019, she passed her master's degree exams with distinction at the Haute Ècole de Musique in Geneva, where she has also began her postgraduate studies with Philippe Spiesser, Christoph Delannoy, François Desforges and Claude Gastaldin.

Marianna Bednarska scored the highest marks from juries for her musicality, personality and technique winning many international prizes, among others ‘Prix Credit Suisse Jeunes Solistes 2019’, Grand Prix’ at the International Music Competition ENKOR 2018, 2nd Prize and the Special Prize, Best Performance of a Belgian Composition’ at the Universal Marimba Competition of the Belgian Queen (Belgium 2017), 1st Prize and the Special Prize at the International Percussion Competition at Northwestern (Chicago, USA 2016), 1st Prize and the Special Prize of the Bayerischer Rundfunk at the International Marimba Competition in Bamberg (Germany 2016),1st Prize at the International Marimba Competition in Paris (France 2009), 1st Prize at the International Marimba Competition in Fermo (Italy 2008) and 1st Prize and the Special Prize at the International Percussion Competition in Plovdiv (Bulgaria 2007). She was also a finalist in the National Eurovision Competition ‘Young Musician of the Year 2009’.

As a soloist, Marianna Bednarska performed in many prestigious concert halls in Poland and abroad (USA, Germany, Austria, Holland, Denmark, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, Ukraine), also with orchestras such as Sinfonia Varsovia, Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, Polish Radio Orchestra in Warsaw, Sinfonia Iuventus, International Chamber Orchestra of Washington, Lviv Philharmony Orchestra and Lviv Virtuosos. She received scholarships from the Polish Government, Swiss Government, Sinfonia Varsovia Foundation of Franciszek Wybranczyk, Crescendum Est Polonia and Kunststiftung Baden- Württemberg. In 2013 Marianna Bednarska was awarded with the ‘Polish-Danish Friendship Prize’ for her close connection with Danish musical life, culminating in the CD recording of Anders Koppel’s four Marimba Concertos (DACAPO Records, 2014) which got extremely positive reviews (The New York Times, Gramophone, Deutschlandfunk, Fanfare Magazine etc.). She also created recordings for the Bayerischer Rundfunk as well as for Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne in it’s project ‘100 for 100. Musical Decades of Independence’.

On 22nd of August 2019, Marianna Bednarska will make her debut as a soloist at the Lucerne Festival.