Maja Trochimczyk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article or section needs to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article with relevant internal links. (March 2008)
Sections should be added to this article, to conform with Wikipedia's Manual of Style.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page.
This article does not cite any references or sources. (March 2008)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article or section appears to have been copied and pasted from a source, possibly in violation of a copyright.
Please edit this article to remove any copyrighted text and to be an original source, following the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. Remove this template after editing.


Maja Trochimczyk (b. Maria Anna Trochimczyk, 30 December 1957 in Warsaw, Poland) is a Californian music historian, development professional, writer and poet of Polish descent.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Her mother, Henryka Wajszczuk (b. December 16,1929 in Baranowicze, now Belarus), comes from a Polish family that lived in the part of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union after WWII and is now in Bielorus. The family was displaced during the war by forced exile (to Siberia and Kazachstan) and is now scattered throughout Poland and the U.S. One of the mother's uncles, Feliks Wajszczuk, was a Roman-Catholic priest in Woskrzenice and a prisoner of the German concentration camp in Dachau during WWII. Another member of the family, Karol Wajszczuk, was a priest active in the anti-German resistance (Home Army) during WWII; held as a prisoner in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (prisoner no. 25746), he later died in the concentration camp in Dachau (as prisoner no. 22572). More information about that part of the family may be found on the Wajszczuk Family Website. Dr. Trochimczyk's father, Aleksy Trochimczyk (September 25, 1927-May 11, 2001), came from a Byelorussian family living in the district of Białystok; the family has roots reaching to Ukraine and the Caucasus mountains. In 2000, Dr. Trochimczyk returned to her family name to honor her parents, victims of a vicious and senseless crime in Poland. (In 1979-1985 she was known as "Maria Depinska" and in 1987-2000 as "Maria Anna Harley.") A citizen of two countries, Poland and Canada, Dr. Trochimczyk hopes to become American soon.

[edit] Career

Dr. Trochimczyk studied musicology at the University of Warsaw (M.A. 1986) and sound engineering at the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw (M.A. 1987). After emigrating to Canada in 1988 she earned her Ph.D. in musicology from McGill University in Montreal in 1994. For the years 1994-1996 she was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This fellowship supported two research projects on contemporary Polish music; after their completion Dr. Trochimczyk joined the faculty of the USC Thornton School of Music as Director of the Polish Music Center (1996-2004). Since 2004, Dr. Trochimczyk has continued her research and music history activities as an independent scholar while working as a professional grantwriter for healthcare and human service organizations, including St. Francis Medical Center, Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, and The Midnight Mission, serving the homeless of Los Angeles County. She currently is Planning and Research Director for Phoenix Houses of California, Inc.

Dr. Trochimczyk's music research interests include the history and aesthetics of 20th-century music, Polish composers (Bacewicz, Lutosławski), women composers, philosophy of music, and music ecology. She published three books, on Polish Dance in Southern California (East European Monographs, Columbia University Press, forthcoming in 2008), The Music of Louis Andriessen (New York: Routledge, 2002), and After Chopin: Essays in Polish Music (Los Angeles: Polish Music Center, 2000). Her publications appeared in Contemporary Music Review, Musical Quarterly, Computer Music Journal, Muzyka, Studia Musicologica, American Music and a host of other scholarly journals. She also contributed to books or series including The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians II (Macmillan), Women Composers: Music Through the Ages (G.K. Hall), Lutosławski Studies (Oxford University Press), The Age of Chopin (Indiana University Press), and Maria Szymanowska: Pianist and Composer (Polish Music Center).

In 1998-2003, Dr. Trochimczyk served as the editor-in-chief of the online Polish Music Journal which she created in collaboration with scholars from Poland, Germany, U.K, and the U.S. Volumes of the Polish Music Journal were dedicated to Chopin, Paderewski, Bacewicz, Stojowski, Polish-Jewish composers and Górecki. In 2000-2004, she was the editor-in-chief of the Polish Music History Series of books. She supervised the publication of vol. 7, The Songs of Szymanowski and His Contemporaries (edited by Zofia Helman, Teresa Chylińska, and Alistair Wightman) and vol. 8, Józef Koffler by Maciej Gołąb. While at USC, Dr. Trochimczyk organized two major international conferences, International Conference on Polish-Jewish Music in 1998 (PMJ vol. 6, no. 1) and The Górecki Phenomenon music history symposium in 1997 (PMJ vol. 6, no. 2). In 2000, she curated a Polish Manuscript Exhibition presenting a sample from over 100 manuscripts and 200 letters by 40 Polish composers that constitute the Polish Manuscript Collection. She had significantly expanded this collection through a two-year manuscript donation drive started in 2000. In 2002-2003, she curated an Exhibition about Ignacy Jan Paderewski that was also shown at CUNY, Buffalo, NY. In 2002, she established the Paderewski Lectures series at USC, commemorating Poland's great statesman, pianist and composer by presenting seminal figures in contemporary Polish music (Zygmunt Krauze, Joanna Bruzdowicz). In 2004, after leaving USC, she co-founded the Society for Polish Music and became its first president.

Dr. Trochimczyk has been writing poetry since 1995, keeping a personal poetic journal and giving poems to friends. In 2006, she was the runner-up for the title of Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga. She joined the McGroarty Chapter of the California Association of Chaparral Poets and began reading poetry at public workshops and chapter meetings. Of her over 800 poems, a chapbook has been published online, "Glorias and Assorted Praises" dedicated to the memory of Sister Elia Maciejewska; collections of Miriam's Iris and Her Rose are forthcoming from Moonrise Press, Los Angeles, and individual poems appeared in St. Gabriel Poetic Quarterly, PoeticDiversity, chapbooks of Poets on Site with poems dedicated to the work of California painter Milton Zornes (1908-2008), and other poetry journals.

[edit] Marriage and children

She has three children: Marcin Depiński (b. February 4, 1979 in Warsaw, Poland; USC B.Sc. 2001; USC M.Sc. 2004), Anna Harley-Trochimczyk (b. August 29, 1989 in Montreal, Canada; USC class of 2011), and Ian Harley-Trochimczyk (b. September 7, 1993 in Montreal, Canada).

[edit] Published works

  • Polish Dance in Southern California. East European Monographs Series, Columbia University Press, 2007. A study of folk dance groups created by émigré amateurs and the influence of folk-song-and-dance ensembles from Poland on the Polish dance movement in America. Based on a 1999 research project of the Southern California Studies Center at USC.


• A Romantic Century in Polish Music. Collection of essays by Magdalena Dziadek, Martina Homma, Krzysztof Rottermund, Krzysztof Szatrawski, Anne Swartz, Maria Zduniak, and the editor. Essays about Szymanowska in Russia, Lipiński in Wrocław, Lipiński's violins, Wieniawski's virtuosity, the reception of Wagner, Paderewski's mystique, women composers, and other issues. PIASA Books, forthcoming.

• The Music of Louis Andriessen. Studies and interviews with the composer by Trochimczyk, additional texts by Dutch contributors: Elmer Schönberger, Frits van der Waa, and Reinbert de Leeuw. New York: Routledge, 2002, 317 pp. With music examples, diagrams, illustrations, list of works, discography, bibliography, index. [See: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), Amazon.com.]


• After Chopin: Studies in Polish Music. Collection of essays about Szymanowski, Lutosławski, Ingarden; and source readings by Polish composers discussing Chopin. Editor, translator, and author of 3 entries (introduction, essays on Ingarden, and national anthems, listed below separately). Los Angeles: Polish Music Center at USC, 2000, 333 pp. Polish Music History Series, vol. 6.

• Henry Brant On His Music: Interviews. Collection of conversations with the composer, 1992-2004. With essays about his music; list of works, calendarium of life, index. Forthcoming.


• Hanna Kulenty's Musical Kitchen. Collection of interviews with the composer (2003); essays about her music, her M.A. thesis in English translation; with a list of works, discography, recipes and index. Forthcoming.

• Polish Music Journal. Online, peer-reviewed journal for research in Polish music (since 1998). Founder and Editor. URL: http://www.usc.edu/go/polish_music/PMJ. Vol. 1, no. 1 (1998, "Wilk Prizes"); vol. 1, no. 2 (1998, "Early music"); vol. 2, nos. 1-2 (1999, "The Chopin Year - I"); vol. 3, no. 1 (2000, "The Chopin Year - II); vol. 3, no. 2 (2000, "Chopin and Lutosławski"); vol. 4, no. 1 (2001, "Paderewski and Polish Emigrés in America"), vol. 4, no. 2 (2001, "The Unknown Paderewski"); vol. 5, no. 1 (2002, "Bacewicz and Wilk Prizes 2001"); vol. 5, no. 2 (2002, "Zygmunt Stojowski and His Times"); vol. 6., no. 1 (2003, "Polish-Jewish Music: Sources and Studies"); vol. 6, no. 2 (2003, "Henryk Mikołaj Górecki").

• Świat Xenakisa [Xenakis's World]. Special issue of the Polish Musicological Quarterly, Muzyka 43, no. 4 (1998), 166 pp. Editor (Maria Anna Harley). Articles by Peter Hoffmann, James Harley, Maria Anna Harley, Mihu Iliescu, Benoit Gibson. Guest editor and author of 4 entries (as M.A. Harley; texts listed below separately).

[edit] Awards

  • 1990—1992 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Doctoral Fellowship.
  • 1994—1996 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Postdoctoral Fellowship (held at McGill University in association with the University of Warsaw).
  • 1995— Eighth Annual Wilk Prize For Research in Polish Music-- Award for the best essay: "At home with phenomenology: Ingarden's work of music revisited."
  • 1997—1998 J.H.Zumberge Fund Research Grant (University of Southern California) for Virtual Encyclopaedia of Polish Music (Pilot Project).
  • 1998— Grants for International Conference, "Polish/Jewish/Music!" held at USC in November, from Jewish Community Foundation, Ars Musica Poloniae Foundation, Ministry of Culture and Arts of the Republic of Poland, Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles, Polish American Congress. (Served as conference chair and organizer).
  • 1999— Junior Faculty Award from the Southern California Studies Center (University of Southern California) for Polish Dance in Southern California.
  • 2001—2002 Postdoctoral Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, East European Committee, for a study of Sound Constructions: Image, Number, and Space in 20th-Century Polish Music.
  • 2007— Polish American Historical Association's Swastek Award for the best article on Polish-American topic by an American scholar, published in 2007, for the article published in the Polish American Journal.

[edit] References

  • Dutka, Elaine. "How USC Nabbed the Great Górecki," Los Angeles Times, 1 October 1997.
  • Inglis, Jadwiga. "Kompozytorka Joanna Bruzdowicz w Los Angeles," The Summit Times (January 2004), Wirtualna Polonia (January 2004).
  • Inglis, Jadwiga. "Pięc tysięcy stron o muzyce. Rozmowa z Mają Trochimczyk," [Five thousand pages about music. An interview with Maja Trochimczyk]. Interview in Polish, in News of Polonia (March 2004), The Summit Times (February 2004), and Głos/Voice (April 2004), reprinted in Bialy Orzel/White Eagle (May 2007).