On April 26, the globally renowned marimba virtuoso, Katarzyna Mycka (born 1972) will perform a solo concert in Rosch Recital Hall. This event is free and open to the public, and is co-sponsored by Marimba One and the Fredonia Percussion Guild.
Katarzyna Mycka is founder of the International Katarzyna Mycka Marimba Academy. Her striking mastery of the instrument has allowed Katarzyna to become one of the few performers worldwide to make her career as a full-time marimbist.
Besides her years of study at the music academies in Gdansk, Stuttgart and Salzburg, where she graduated with honors, numerous prizes at international competitions have documented Katarzyna’s artistic development.
Katarzyna gained world recognition early on with first prizes at international competitions. In 1995 she won the Luxembourg International Percussion Competition and in 1996 she won the First World Marimba Competition in Stuttgart. Other winning competitions include First Prize at the 1991 Polish Percussion Competition in Opole and being awarded a special prize in the form of a stipend for foreign study at the 1992 "Concours International d'Exécution Musicale" in Geneva. Katarzyna was also a finalist at the 1997 ARD Competition in Munich, the same year that she made her American debut at the International Percussive Arts Society Conference in Anaheim, CA.
Katarzyna has appeared as soloist at the First Marimba Festival in Osaka/ Japan (1997) and at the International Marimba Festival in Linz/Austria (2004). She is a guest soloist with many orchestras, including the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Bochum Symphony, Camerata Israeli, WKO Heilbronn, Vanderbilt University Orchestra and with many Philharmonic Orchestras in Poland.
Awarded the honor of "Ambassadress of Polish Percussive Arts" by the Polish Percussive Arts Society in 1999, Katarzyna continues a rigorous performance and jurist schedule, as well as teaching marimba at the Paderewski Music Academy in Poznan, Poland.
