Robert Muczynski

Robert Muczynski (March 19, 1929 – May 25, 2010) was a Polish-American composer.

He then matriculated to DePaul University in the late 1940s, where he studied composition with Alexander Tcherepnin.

At age 29 he made his Carnegie Hall debut, performing a program of his own compositions for piano.

Muczynski was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended Steinmetz High School, and graduated in 1949.

Muczynski studied piano with Walter Knupfer and composition with Alexander Tcherepnin at DePaul University in Chicago, where he received both his Bachelor of Music degree (1950) and his Master of Music degree (1952) in Piano Performance.

Muczynski later taught at DePaul University, Loras College, and Roosevelt University, before settling in Tucson in the 1960s where he joined the faculty of the University of Arizona as a composer-in-residence and chairman of the composition department.

Among the more than fifty published compositions in his catalog, Sonata for flute and piano, Op. 14 (1961), Sonata for alto saxophone and piano (1970), and Time Pieces for clarinet and piano (1984) have entered the repertoire and remain frequently performed in recitals, as has much of his solo piano music.

Works by Muczynski have also appeared with increasing frequency on programs in the U.S., Europe, the Far East, Australia and Mexico.

Orchestral works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, D.C., the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and others abroad.

He held both positions until his retirement in 1988.

Muczynski wrote his final composition, Desperate Measures (Paganini Variations) (for piano), in 1996.

He died from leukemia in Tucson, Arizona, on May 25, 2010.

Opus title, date of composition, and publisher: