Ptaszyńska studied composition with Tadeusz Paciorkiewicz and theory of music at the National Academy of Music in Warsaw as well as percussion with Jerzy Zgodzinski at the National Academy of Music in Poznań. In 1969-70 she was a postgraduate student of composition with Nadia Boulanger and at the Centre Bourdan in Paris, and then stayed at the Cleveland Institute of Music, earning the Artist Diploma Degree in percussion instruments in 1974. In 1974-7 Ptaszyńska taught composition and percussion instruments at Bennington College in Vermont, and then at the University of California in Berkeley and Santa Barbara, Indiana University in Bloomington, College Conservatory of Music in Cincinatti and, recently, as a composer-in-residence, at Northwestern University in Evanston.
A composer and percussionist, Ptaszyńska was comprehensively educated in the percussion, having studied in Poznań with Jerzy Zgodziński, one of Poland's foremost percussionists, and then continuing her education at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she earned an Artist Diploma Degree in percussion instruments. The percussion has been central to most of her career. She has taught it at several American universities and colleges alongside lecturing composition. Twice a laureate of the Percussive Arts Society in the United States and recipient of its honorary award, Ptaszyńska has been its member and sat on its Board. She has also organized the International Percussion Workshops in Bydgoszcz, and served as an artistic advisor at the Polish Music Festival at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at the Lincoln Center in 1994 and 1996. Since 1972 Ptaszyńska has lived in the United States. More than that, she has been composing for the percussion, most of her works featuring this instrument in the forefront rather than the background.
Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra is probably Ptaszyńska's most popular work. Awarded a prize at the International Composing Competition in New York in 1987, it was composed for Keiko Abe, the distinguished Japanese percussionist specializing in playing the marimba. In general, Ptaszyńska's compositions are played at all levels of mastery. Professional percussionists favour her Space Model for percussion and tape (1971), Siderals for percussion and slides (1974), Mobile for two percussionists (1975), Graffito for marimba solo (1988), Spider Walk for percussion solo (1993). Ptaszyńska's output includes also works for children, notably her two 1968 compositions Suite Variée for percussion quartet and piano and Little Mosaic for percussion ensemble as well as The Colourful World of Percussion from 1970-8 and a children opera in three acts Mr Marimba, composed in 1993-5.
Ptaszyńska's music is extremely colourful, but then the colour possibilities of percussion instruments are immense. It is not accidental that she often relates her work to painting. Each part of her 1985 Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra has been named after a painting, including Ives Tanguy's Echo of Fear, Max Ernst's Eye of Silence and Graham Sutherland's Thorny Trees. Her Moon Flowers from 1986 were commented on by Ptaszyńska in the following way:
This work was inspired by paintings by Odilon Redon, the French Symbolist (1849-1916) whose visionary art, full of rich and unusual fantasies, has always fascinated me. This is why I have used the title of one of Redon's paintings.
Liquid Light, composed to poems by the contemporary American poet Modene Duffy, earned the following comment from Ptaszyńska:
Music, like poetry, is saturated with intense and sharply contrasting colours, reminiscent of the world of Gaugain.
Marta Ptaszyńska is a laureate of many composition contests, including the Young Composers' Competition of the Polish Composers' Association (1971), Polish Radio and Television Contest (1972), Percussive Arts Society Competitions (United States, 1974 and 1976). Her La Novella d'inferno for strings from 1984 came second at UNESCO's National Composers' Tribune in Paris in 1986, and Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra from 1985 won a prize at the International Composing Competition in New York in 1987. Ptaszyńska was also a winner of ASCAP, Meet-the-Composer and Percussive Arts Society awards, and received the Polish Composers' Association Medal for promoting Polish music in the US (1988), Officer's Cross of Merit (1995) and the New York's Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Award (1997).
Ptaszyńska is also involved in music education at the academic level. She taught composition at many American universities, including the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara, California, the Indiana University in Bloomington, the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, the Northwestern University. Since 1998, she's been a full professor of composition at the University of Chicago holding a title of Helen B. & Frank L. Sulzberger Chair in Composition.
In 2010 she was granted the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in the field of music composition.
Selected compositions:
- Cztery preludia / Four Preludes for vibraphone and piano (1965)
- Scherzo for xylophone and piano (1967)
- Improwizacje / Improvisations for orchestra (1968)
- Wariacje / Variations for solo flute na flet solo (1968)
- Suite Variée for children for percussion quartet and piano (1968)
- Mala mozaika / Little Mosaic for children for percussion ensemble (1968)
- Bajka o słowikach / A Tale of Nightingales for baritone and chamber ensamble, to the poetry of K.I. Gałczynski (1968)
- Recitativo, Arioso e Toccata per violino solo (1968-75)
- Jeu-Parti for harp and vibraphone (1970)
- Kolorowy swiat perkusji / Colorful World of Percussion for children (1970-78)
- Mala fantazja meksykanska / Little Mexican Fantasy for percussion and piano (1971)
- Vocalise for female voice and vibraphone (1971)
- Madrigals Canticum Sonarum Igor Stravinsky In memoriam for woodwind and string quartets, trumpet, trombone and gong (1971)
- Stress for percussion and tape (1971)
- Space Model for percussion and tape (1971)
- Arabeska / Arabesque for harp solo (1972)
- Cadenza for flute and percussion (1972)
- Oscar z Alwy / Oscar of Alva, TV opera in 6 scenes for 5 soloists (soprano, mezzo, tenore, baritone, bass) mixed choir, and orchestra, in Polish with English subtitles; libretto based on Lord Byron's poem by Z. Kopalko{C} (1972)
- Crystallites for orchestra (1973)
- Spectri Sonori for orchestra (1973)
- Two Poems for tuba solo (1973-75)
- Siderals for two percussion quintets and light projection {C} (1974)
- Concerto / Concerto for Percussion Quartet and Orchestra (1974)
- Touracou for harpsichord solo (1974)
- Farewell Souvenir for piano solo (1975)
- Mobile for two percussionists (1975)
- Classical Variations for timpani and string quartet (1976)
- Quodlibet for double-bass and prerecorded tape (1976)
- Epigrams for women's choir, flute, harp, piano and percussion, to ancient Greek poetry; in English (1976-77)
- Un grand sommeil noir / A Great Dark Sleep for soprano, flute and harp, to Paul Verlaine's poem (1977)
- Melodie z roznych stron / Tunes from Many Countries of the World, children's songs arrangement for percussion and instruments (1977)
- Synchrony for percussion trio (1978)
- Podroze w kosmos / Journeys into Space for Piano in two volumes, a set of 19 miniatures (1978)
- Dream Lands, Magic Spaces for violin, piano and 6 percussion players (1978-79)
- Muzyka pieciu stopni / Music of Five Steps for two flutes and percussion ensemble (1979)
- Six Bagatelles for harp solo (1979)
- Soirée Snobe chez la Princesse, instrumental theatre for 2 keyboard instruments, prerecorded tape, mimes and lighting (1979)
- Dwa sonety do Orfeusza / Die Sonette an Orpheus / Sonnets to Orpheus for middle voice and chamber orchestra, to R.M. Rilke's poems (1980-81)
- Conductus - A Ceremonial for Winds for symphonic band (1982)
- Ave Maria [version I] for four men's voices, brass, percussion and organ (1982)
- Miniatury na fortepian / Miniatures for piano, 14 miniatures (1982)
- Scintilla for two marimbas (1983)
- La Novella d'inverno / Winter's Tale for strings (1983-84)
- Four Seasons for Four Hands 12 pieces for piano 4 hands (1984)
- Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra (1984-85)
- Silver Threads and Other Songs for Children for voice, chorus, and percussion in various combinations, to the poetry of Jozef Czechowicz (1985-86)
- Music Alphabet for two pianos; a set of 22 pieces, mainly dances from A to Z (1985-86)
- Kwiaty księżyca / Moon Flowers for cello and piano (1986)
- Ave Maria [version II] for men's choir and orchestra (brass, percussion, strings) {C} (1987)
- Charlie's Dream - Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (1988)
- Listy polskie / Polish Letters, cantata for percussion, piano, string quartet, soprano, mezzo, baritone soli, to the poetry of Polish and other European poets (1988)
- Graffito for marimba solo (1988)
- Songs of Despair and Loneliness for mezzosoprano and piano, poems by Rilke, Verlaine, Shakespeare, Staff, and Lorca in original languages (1988-89)
- Ajikan - Unfolding Light for flute and percussion (1989)
- Poetic Impressions for woodwind quintet and piano (1991)
- Ode to Praise all Famous Women for orchestra (1992)
- Hommage a I.J. Paderewski for piano solo (1992)
- Holocaust Memorial Cantata for three solo voices, mixed choir and orchestra (percussion, harp, strings), to the poetry of Leslie Woolf Hedley Chant for All the People on Earth (English/Hebrew/Yiddish/Polish) (1993)
- Spider Walk for percussion solo (1993)
- Pan Marimba / Mister Marimba, children's opera in 3 acts, to the libretto of Polish lyricist Agnieszka Osiecka (1993-95)
- Fanfare for Peace for orchestra (1994)
- Four Portraits for string quartet (1994)
- Liquid Light for mezzosoprano, piano and percussion, to the poetry of Modene Duffy (1994-95)
- Cantiones Jubilationis: In Praise of Peace for women's choir and percussion, to the poetry of Modene Duffy (1995)
- Silver Echoes of Distant Bells for mezzosoprano and string quartet, to the poetry of Lord Tennyson, Leslie Woolf Hedley, Donald Bogen, Krzysztof Koehler and Stanislaw Wyspianski (1995)
- Concerto Grosso for two violins and chamber orchestra (1996)
- Mancala for 2 violins (1997)
- Scherzo di Fantasia for euphonium and piano (1997)
- Linear Constructions in Space for 6 percussion players (1997-98)
- Olympian Rings for soprano steel drum (1997-98)
- Letter to the Sun for frame drum, percussion quartet and narrator (1998-2000)
- Luna Stelle for 2 pianos and 2 percussion players (1998-99)
- Primary Colors for percussion quartet (1999)
- Fanfare in memoriam Frederic Chopin for orchestra (1999)
- Drum of Orfeo – Concerto for Percussion for percussion and orchestra (1999-2002)
- Inverted Mountain for orchestra (2000)
- The Last Waltz in Vienna for 3 accordions (2001)
- Sen Eurydyki/ Euridice's Dream for 2 harps (2001)
- Mosaics for string quartet (2002)
- Sinfonia Wratislavia for orchestra (2003-2004)
- Pianophonia for piano (2004)
- Elegia in Memoriam John Paul II for viola solo (2005)
- Magiczny Doremik/ Magic Doremi opera for children in 2 acts (2006-2007)
- Lumen for orchestra (2007)
- Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra (2007-2008)
- Street Music for great percussion orchestra (2008)
- Hymn of the Universe for mixed choir and organ (2008)
- Trois visions de l'arc-en-ciel for chamber ensemble (2008)
- Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra (2009)
Author: Polish Music Information Center, Polish Composers' Union, February 2002, updated by GS, September 2015