Wanda Wiłkomirska

Wanda Wiłkomirska (born 11 January 1929 in Warsaw; † 1 May 2018) was a Polish violinist.

Wiłkomirska received her first violin lessons from her father Alfred Wiłkomirski. She later studied with Irena Dubiska in Łódź, with Ede Zathureczky in Budapest and with Henryk Szeryng in Paris, winning several international prizes. In the 1950s and 1960s she gave more than one hundred concerts a year and made numerous recordings.

She has performed in over fifty countries worldwide with the great symphony orchestras under conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Otto Klemperer, Sir John Barbirolli, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Carlo Maria Giulini, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Witold Rowicki, Erich Leinsdorf, Pierre Boulez, Eugen Jochum and Franz Konwitschny.

Wiłkomirska recorded world premieres of contemporary composers such as Tadeusz Baird and Krzysztof Penderecki and received the Polish State Prize for the promotion of contemporary Polish music. In addition to her solo career, she has also devoted herself to chamber music. With Maria Wiłkomirska and Kazimierz Wiłkomirski she formed the Wiłkomirski Trio, and from 1992 with Werner Genuit and Christoph Richter the Wiłkomirska Trio. She has also been a chamber music partner of musicians such as Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Daniel Barenboim, Radu Lupu and Mischa Maisky.

She was politically extremely committed: she supported the illegal democracy movement around the Committee for the Defence of the Workers (KOR). In protest against the imposition of martial law in December 1981, she left her homeland and moved to the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1983 Wiłkomirska became a professor at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts. From 1999 she taught at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and from 2001 also at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne.

Wiłkomirska was the first wife of the politician Mieczysław Rakowski, the marriage produced two sons.

She was buried in the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.

Discography

• Wanda Wilkomirska plays Polish music by Paderewski, Bacewicz, Zarzycki and Bargielski, with Paul Dam, piano, Ambitus, amb97830
• Prokofieff, Two Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Connoisseur Society, CD 4079
• Works by Wieniawski, Lipinski and Bacewics with Jadwiga Szamotulska, Gambit 1003-1
• Britten Violin Concerto Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Witold Rowicki, Soloist: Wanda Wilkomirska, 1967, Orchestral Concert CDs, CD12/2011
• Karol Szymanowski, Violin Concertos 1&2, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under Witold Rowicki, Soloist: Wanda Wilkomirska, 1961/1980, LP, Polskie Nagrania Muza (SX 2351)