In recent seasons Polish violinist Magdalena Filipczak has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in the UK (including Wigmore Hall, Barbican Hall, St Martin in the Fields, St John’s Smith Square), Europe (among others in Het Concertgebouw, Tallinn Philharmonic, Cracow Philharmonic, Baltic Philharmonic) as well as the USA (Carnegie Hall), Canada and South America. She was one of the Holland Music Sessions’ New Masters on Tour 2015/16. Last year she joined the Perlman Chamber Music Program. Magdalena is a recipient of prestigious CUNY Graduate Center Fellowship in New York, where she studies violin with Daniel Phillips and Donald Weilerstein, as well as voice with Robert White, and is a D.M.A. in Performance candidate. 

 

Recently she won the First Prize at 2017 United States International Concerto Competition, Gold Prize of 2018 International Manhattan Music Competition joining Manhattan Concert Artists Agency Roster, and Silver Prize at 2018 Berliner International Music Competition. Among her many competition successes, she is the winner of the IV Heino Eller International Violin Competition in Estonia, where she was also awarded special prizes for the best interpretation of Bach, and the best concerto performance in the final. As a young creator of culture, and for her many competition successes, she was awarded a 'Młoda Polska Scholarship' by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

 

Magdalena’s solo disc ‘Essence of Violin’, featuring works by Polish and British composers as well as Saint-Saëns and Piazzolla, was released to critical acclaim on Audio-B label ‘...glittering....beguiling...captivating...hauntingly atmospheric...’ Julian Haylock, THE STRAD; ‘She is a musical chameleon, quickly getting under the skin of whatever she’s playing.’ Graham Rickson, The ARTS DESK. Magdalena has also been featured in three CDs of chamber music works by Schoenberg, Webern, Zemlinsky, Wagner, Berg, and Current together with Gruppo Montebello and conductor Henk Guittart, released on Etcetera label, which were recorded at the Banff Arts Centre in Canada. With the Royal Northern Sinfonia she recorded violin solos for a CD ‘Songs to the North Sky’ by Grammy Award composer Tim Garland, released on Edition Records, (5 stars by the BBC Music Magazine and the Guardian). Recently she recorded the next CD with Tim Garland and this will be released in late 2018. Recently she recorded the next disc with Tim Garland, “The Weather Walker”, and Two CDs with music by Peter Gregson: “Quartets: One” and “Quartets: Two”.

Magdalena has appeared at Music Festivals such as Proms, City of London Festival (UK), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), Yellow Barn (USA), Krzyżowa-Music (Poland), Ryedale Festival (UK), Swaledale Festival (UK), Norfolk Festival (USA), Paxos Chamber Music Festival (Greece), Lidköping Festival (Sweden), Tallinn Chamber Music Festival (Estonia). Magdalena has recorded for the BBC Radio 3, Chicago WFMT Radio, Dutch Radio 4, Canadian Radio, Polish, Austrian and Estonian TV and Radio. She toured Brazil and Argentina as a guest leader/director with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra. 

 

In concerts Magdalena has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Peter Frankl, Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Clive Greensmith, Claudio Bohorquez, Krzysztof Jabłoński, Volker Jacobsen, Gilbert Kalish, London Mozart Trio, Nicholas Mann, Violaine Melançon, Charles Neidich, Rohan de Saram, Krzysztof Śmietana, Colin Stone, Roger Tapping, Donald Weilerstein, and Vivian Weilerstein. Over the past years she has been guided through masterclasses and private lessons by: Glenn Dicterow, Miriam Fried, Henk Guittart, Gary Hoffman, Marina Jaszwili, Lewis Kaplan, Konstanty Andrzej Kulka, Wolfgang Marschner, Midori, Merry Peckham, Itzhak Perlman, Igor Petrushevsky, Ferenc Rados, Alexander Rudin, Gerhard Schulz, Mark Steinberg, Tokyo String Quartet, Rita Wagner, Krzysztof Węgrzyn, and Wanda Wiłkomirska. 

 

Ms. Filipczak holds Master of Music and Performance degrees from the Guildhall School in London, where her violin teacher was Krzysztof Śmietana. In addition to violin playing, Magdalena studied classical voice with John Evans at the Guildhall, and later she had private lessons with Benita Valente. Upon graduating, she was awarded a prestigious Artist's Fellowship and as a part of it she taught violin at the City University in Islington until 2014. She also taught violin, viola, and chamber music at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London (Junior Department) until 2017, and has given masterclasses in Brazil, Yellow Barn’s Young Artists Program (USA), and through the Perlman’s Music Program Residencies. Magdalena teaches violin and chamber music at the Aaron Copland School of Music (Queens College) in New York. Between 2010-2015 Magdalena had co-directed Devonia Concert Series in London. She is working on founding an International Music Festival in the UK with collaborative chamber music.