Krzysztof Penderecki was a Polish composer and conductor. The Guardian called him "Poland's greatest composer." He is represented in the Jubilate Music Group (HW Gray) catalog with Stabat Mater. His other best known works are his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, Symphony No. 3, St. Luke Passion, Polish Requiem, Anaklasis, Utrenja, four operas, eight symphonies and other orchestral pieces, a variety of instrumental concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as well as chamber and instrumental works.
Born in Dębica to a lawyer, Penderecki studied music at Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Music in Kraków. After graduating from the Academy of Music, Penderecki became a teacher at the academy and he began his career as a composer in 1959 during the Warsaw Autumn festival. His Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra and the choral work St. Luke Passion, have received popular acclaim. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Penderecki's composing style changed, with his first violin concerto focusing on the semitone and the tritone. His choral work Polish Requiem was written in the 1980s, with Penderecki expanding it in 1993 and 2005.
Penderecki won many prestigious awards, including five Grammy Awards, The Commander's Cross in 1964, the Prix Italia in 1967 and 1968, the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1964, Wolf Prize in Arts in 1987 and the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1992.
