Stanislaw skrowaczewski biography of barack

Polish-American conductor and composer Stanisław Skrowaczewski was born in Lwów on 3 October 1923. He showed promise as a pianist from an early age, giving his first public recital at eleven, but had to reconsider his options when he suffered a hand injury during World War II.

He studied composition and conducting at the Kraków Academy of Music, and, later, after the war, composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, where he also co-founded Groupe Zodaique.

He worked as music director of a series of Polish orchestras - the Wrocław Philharmonic, the Katowice Philharmonic, the Kraków Philharmonic and the Warsaw National Orchestra - and in 1956 won the Santa Cecilia Conductors' Competition in Rome.

He then worked in the USA for the next couple of decades, as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra.

From 1984 until 1991, Stan was principal conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, giving concerts across England, Europe and the USA