Eugenia Umińska

Eugenia Umińska

Eugenia Umińska (born October 4, 1910 in Warsaw ; † November 20, 1980 in Krakow ) was a Polish violinist and music teacher.

Umińska attended the Warsaw Music Society School from 1915 to 1918, where she was a student of Mieczysław Michałowicz . From 1919 to 1927 she studied violin with Józef Jarzębski at the Warsaw Conservatory . She completed her training with Otakar Ševčík (1927–28) and George Enescu (1932–34).

From 1932 to 1934 she was concertmaster in the orchestra of the Polish Radio, then until 1937 second concertmaster in the orchestra of the Warsaw Philharmonic. She also played the first violin in the string quartet of the Warsaw Music Society and was a member of the Polish Quartet. In a duo with Karol Szymanowski , she performed his compositions several times. In the 1940s she performed as a soloist in England, France, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Bulgaria and the USSR.

When regular concerts became impossible after the German occupation in 1939 , Umińska, the cellist Kazimierz Wiłkomirski and the pianist Maria Wiłkomirska founded a piano trio that could perform in a coffee house in the Zachęta building . When the Zachęta was closed after a concert with works exclusively by Polish composers ( Władysław Żeleński , Karol Szymanowski and Ludomir Różycki ), the trio found a new place of work in a coffee house run by the pianist and composer Bolesław Woytowicz . Here Umińska occurred in 1941 with a string quartet (with Kazimierz Wilkomirski, Roman Padlewski and Henryk Trzonek ) and has performed world premieres of compositions Roman Padlewskis, Roman Palesters , Zbigniew Turskis , Stanisław Wiechowicz ' Bacewicz ', Kazimierz Wilkomirski and Witold Rudzinskis .

After her refusal to take part in a concert organized by the German occupation at the Warsaw City Theater, Umińska only appeared in clandestine underground concerts, at which donations were also collected for underground artists such as Władysław Szpilman . She worked here a. a. together with Witold Lutosławski and with Andrzej Panufnik as a piano duo and made numerous recordings for an underground radio studio.

In 1944 Umińska trained as a medic for the Polish Home Army . During the Warsaw uprising she was arrested and deported to Germany for forced labor. On the way, however, she managed to escape and went into hiding with friends near Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski until the end of the war .

In June 1945 Umińska appeared for the first time after the war in Cracow with the Violin Concerto in D major by Johannes Brahms with the orchestra of the Cracow Philharmonic under the direction of Andrzej Panufnik . In 1946 she founded a string quartet that lasted fifteen years, later she made radio recordings in trio with various Krakow musicians, and she also worked as a violin duo with Irena Dubiska . She gave her first concert after the war in Germany in 1949 in Berlin, where she played Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto under the direction of Grzegorz Fitelberg .

From 1945 to 1980 Umińska taught at the State Music Academy in Cracow . She received a professorship here in 1962 and was rector from 1964 to 1966. From 1957 she headed the faculty for string instruments. She also taught at the State Music School and the city's music college. Among her students here were Kaja Danczowska and Wiesław Kwaśny , during the occupation in Warsaw she had also taught Wanda Wiłkomirska .

Umińska was a regular member of the jury in international violin competitions. She was co-founder and from 1959 to 1965 board member of the Society of Polish Music Interpreters (SPAM) and honorary member of the Wieniawski Music Society in Poznan and the Eugène Ysaye Foundation in Brussels. She was honored by the Polish state with the Order of Labor (1949), the State Music Prize (1952 and 1955) and awards from the Ministry of Culture (1964 and 1974).

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• Hamburg University of Music and Theater - Music and Gender on the Internet - Eugenia Umińska
• Polskie Centrum Informacji Muzycznej - Eugenia Umińska