Wise Music Creative Spotlights Zbigniew Preisner

Zbigniew Preisner (b. 1955) is Poland's leading film music composer and is considered to be one of the most outstanding film composers of his generation. For many years Zbigniew enjoyed a close collaboration with the director Krzysztof Kieslowski and his scriptwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz. His scores for Kieslowski’s films No end, Dekalog, The Double Life Of Veronique, Three Colours Blue, Three Colours White and Three Colours Red have brought him international acclaim.

Zbigniew has scored many feature films including Hector Babenco’s At Play In The Fields Of The Lord, Foolish heart, My Hindu Friend, Louis Malle’s Damage, Luis Mandoki’s When A Man Loves A Woman, Agnieszka Holland’s Europa Europa, Olivier Olivier, The Secret Garden, Charles Sturridge’s Fairytale: A True Story, Thomas Vinterberg’s It’s All About Love, Jean Becker’s Eliza, Effroyables jardins, Soren Kragh-Jacobsen The Island on Bird Street, Claude Miller’s Un Secret, Max Färberböck’s Anonyma, Kriszta Deak's Aglaja. Camilo Cavalcante’s The History of Eternity, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Angelica, Fernando Trueba’s Queen of Spain, Forgotten we'll be, Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen’s Valley of Shadows, Feng Mei's Love song 1980.

Requiem for My Friend, Zbigniew’s first large-scale work specially written for recording and live performance, is dedicated to the memory of Krzysztof Kieslowski. Originally released on Erato Disques (Warner Classics) in October 1998, the work received its world premiere at the Teatr Wielki, Warsaw, on the 1st October 1998. The album has been rereleased on CD and vinyl by Sony Poland.

Zbigniew’s second large-scale work is Silence, Night and Dreams, for orchestra, choir and soloists, based on texts from the Book of Job. The recording features the voice of Teresa Salgueiro (from Madredeus) and was released worldwide on EMI Classics in 2007. The world premiere of the work took place on 4th September 2007 in the Herodion Theatre on the Acropolis in Athens.

Zbigniew records and mixes all his film scores and albums at his own studio in Poland. His recent works as producer of music include Earthshine, the second album by the post-rock band Tides From Nebula and two albums by the jazz pianist Leszek Mozdzer, Time and Between Us And The Light.

Zbigniew also received the Award of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for outstanding achievements in the presentation of Polish Culture abroad, the Officer’s Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland from the President of Poland, and the Gold Medal Gloria Artis from the Polish Minister of Culture. Zbigniew is a member of the French Film Academy.

Find his music here.