About this Artist

Born: 1943, Kraków, Poland

One of the musicians who grew up in the heady years of the first Warsaw Autumn festivals, KRZYSZTOF MEYER studied composition with Stanisław Wiechowicz and Penderecki in Krakow, and composition and piano with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He has been professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne since 1987, and served as composer-in-residence with the Cologne Philharmonic (1991/1992) and at the Seattle Festival (1996).

“Music, literature, sculpture, painting, theater, film, and architecture are all subject to the same construction rules,” Meyer said in a 2013 interview. “We operate on repetitiveness, symmetry, the rule of the ‘golden ratio’ and the essential elements, which I regard as a proof for the existence of a certain common tendency of humans’ minds to create order and logical systems.”

Meyer’s compositions include eight symphonies, 15 concertos, 14 string quartets, and three operas, and he is also a prolific author of articles and monographs, including biographies of Shostakovich and Lutosławski.