Wladyslaw Kedra

Władysław Kędra (born September 16, 1918 in Łódź , † September 26, 1968 in Warsaw ) was a Polish pianist and music teacher.

Kędra had piano lessons with Helena Kijeńska from 1924 and from 1933 attended Antoni Dobkiewicz's piano class at their conservatory. In May 1933 he made his pianist debut in Łódź with Joseph Haydn's Piano Concerto in D major and Camille Saint-Saëns ' Rhapsodie d'Auvergne for piano and orchestra. In 1937 he took part in the International Chopin Competition . Although he did not win a prize, he aroused the interest of the juror Magda Tagliaferro , who invited him to continue his studies with her at the Paris Conservatory . He took up this offer during the summer vacation of the following two years.

In 1938 Ignacy Paderewski invited him to perform in Morges and offered him further artistic advice. In the same year he made his debut with the Polish Radio in Łódź with Robert Schumann's Toccata in C major, Franz Liszt's Paganini Etudes and Johannes Brahms ' Paganini Variations. During the years of the German occupation, Kędra lived as a bar pianist in Łódź and gave several concerts in the Warsaw Underground, where he played works by banned composers such as Fryderyk Chopin , Karol Szymanowski , Roman Maciejewski and Kazimierz Jurdziński . After the Warsaw Uprising , he and his family were taken on a Nazi deportation transport. However, he managed to escape.

He hid in southern Poland until the end of the war, in 1945 he returned to his hometown Łódź. In 1946 he was among the finalists of the Concours de Genève , and in 1949 he received fifth prize at the International Chopin Competition . In the following years he gave numerous concerts in Poland and other European countries.

In 1957 he went to Vienna, where he led a piano class at the Academy for Music and Performing Arts . He also gave dozens of concerts in Europe and the USA every year. In 1968 he died of cancer at the age of 50. He left behind recordings of works by Chopin, Isaac Albéniz , Manuel Infantes , Enrique Granados , Claude Debussys , Liszt, Stanisław Moniuszkos , Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Dmitri Shostakovich , George Gershwin and others. In 2018 the Władysław Kędra piano competition dedicated to him took place in his hometown of Łódź .

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personal data
SURNAME	Kędra, Władysław
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Polish pianist and music teacher
DATE OF BIRTH	September 16, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH	Łódź
DATE OF DEATH	26th September 1968
Place of death	Warsaw