Poland’s Culture Minister Honors Music Dean

May 8, 2009 10:20 AM

Bogdan Zdrojewski, Poland’s minister of culture and national heritage, on his first visit to Los Angeles, decorated USC Thornton School of Music Dean Robert A. Cutietta with his country’s Gloria Artis medal on April 23. This prestigious award recognizes outstanding individuals for their contributions to Polish culture.

In his remarks to Cutietta, Zdrojewski summarized the longstanding relationship of the USC Thornton School and the Polish Music Center at USC and the dean’s leading role in promoting Polish music and culture in Southern California. Cutietta thanked the minister for the award, describing his advocacy of Polish music and cooperation with the Polish Music Center as “the right thing to do.”

Zdrojewski was accompanied by Paulina Kapuscinska, consul general of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles; Malgorzata Cup, consul for culture; Roman Czarny, former consul for culture; and film director Krzysztof Jankowski.

Following the decoration ceremony, the dean and minister stepped outside for a photo opportunity next to the monument of Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Paderewski — one of the most important pianists in the history of music — was also a statesman and a humanitarian and his accomplishments in the fields of music and diplomacy were recognized by USC with an honorary doctorate in 1923.

Paderewski’s monument was unveiled by the Polish Music Center at a ceremony in October 2007, during which Provost C. L. Max Nikias, Cutietta and Janusz Reiter, Poland’s ambassador to the United States, participated along with Kapuscinska and numerous members of the Polish community in Los Angeles.

The Polish Music Center’s manuscript collection housed in the Special Collections Department in Doheny Memorial Library was the next stop on the minister’s USC itinerary.

Manuscripts of compositions by leading contemporary Polish composers were on display, including several major orchestral works by Witold Lutostawski, Krzysztof Penderecki and Krzysztof Meyer. Scores by Grazyna Bacewicz, whose centenary celebration recently was commemorated with a concert in USC’s Newman Hall, were also prepared for the minister’s viewing by Melinda Hayes, head of Special Collections.

The Polish Music Center in Stonier Hall was the last stop on the minister’s visit. Krysta Close, center manager and librarian, welcomed the minister. Director Marek Zebrowski highlighted the collection of manuscripts by Henry Vars and Zygmunt Stojowski, as well as photographs, personal items, correspondence and concert programs of Paderewski. This recent donation of Paderewski memorabilia is known as the Paso Robles Collection and was assembled by Paderewski fan Hy Blythe of Paso Robles.

The minister presented the center with a 12-CD set of recordings of all of Frederic Chopin’s compositions, performed by various Polish artists. In addition, the center library received two volumes of limited edition facsimiles of Chopin’s manuscripts, including his Etudes Op. 10 and Mazurkas, Op. 33, recently published under the minister’s aegis. Another gift was a book about composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki and a recording of his most famous works.

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