Wojtek Blecharz

Wojtek Blecharz, born in 1981 in Gdynia (Poland) and based in Berlin, is a composer and sound artist. His music often redefines the traditional concert format and proposes different relations between the listener/viewer and the sound. His music involves site-specific projects, participatory audience, elements of music and instrumental theatre, as well as immersion and embodiment of sound.

Blecharz has a Master of Arts degree from the Frederic Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw, and in 2015 he received a Ph.D. in music composition at the University of California San Diego. Between 2012 and 2019 he curated the Instalakcje music festival at Warsaw’s Nowy Theater, featuring non-concert music like sound installations, performance installations, sound sculptures, music videos, musical theatre, and others. He has directed three of his opera-installations: “Transcryptum” (2013, Grand Theatre – National Opera, Warsaw), “Park-Opera” (2016, Theatre Powszechny, Warsaw) and “Body-Opera” (2016, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival). In 2018 he composed the opera “FIASKO”, commissioned by Staatstheater Darmstadt; in 2019 “Rechnitz.Opera” for 6 actors and 4 cellos, based on Elfriede Jelinek’s text and commissioned by the Warsaw Autumn festival and TR Warszawa. His most recent projects are his Symphony No. 3 for 220 wireless speakers commissioned by Donaueschingen Musiktage 2023 and his Concerto for Piano and Wireless Speakers that premiered at the Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt in 2023.

Blecharz composed pieces for Kwadrofonik ensemble, Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra, Klangforum Wien, Royal String Quartet, Aviva Endean, Jennifer Torrence, Ryan Muncy, Rupert Enticknap, International Contemporary Ensemble, Musiques Nouvelles, Collegium Novum Zurich, KNM Ensemble, Asian Art Ensemble, among others. Recently, his works were performed at Warsaw Autumn, MaerzMusik, Salzburg Biennale, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music, MATA Festival (New York), Mostly Mozart Festival (New York), and others. Blecharz collaborates with various curatorial teams such as Arts Territory (London), Tokarnia (Szczecin), Pracownia Kuratorska (Cracow), Curatorial Collective for Public Arts (Berlin), and others.

Among his numerous honours, he was last awarded the Akademie der Künste’s INITIAL Special Grant (2021), and he received The Stipend of the Capital City of Warsaw in 2022.