Piotr Buczek
Piotr Buczek was born in Chorzow Poland. He was a founding member of the Penderecki String Quartet, which since 1991 remains the quartet-in-residence at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). Mr. Buczek began violin studies at the age of eight. In 1986 he graduated from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, receiving a Diploma of Art with special distinction. In 1986, Mr. Buczek left Poland to continue his music education in the United States.
From 1986-88 he was an assistant to Ralph Evans of the Fine Arts Quartet at the Chamber Music Institute in Milwaukee, where he received his Master’s Degree and studied with Pinchas Zukerman, Yo Yo Ma, Ursula Oppens, Shlomo Mintz, and others. Later, at the University of Maryland, he studied with Daniel Heifetz, Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley of the Guarneri Quartet. He has performed throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas with the Penderecki Quartet and as a soloist and chamber musician. His discography includes eleven CD’s with the Penderecki Quartet.
His chamber music partners have been: pianists Janina Fialkowska, Lev Natochenny, and Jamie Parker; cellists Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Pieter Wispelwey; violinist Martin Beaver and clarinetist James Campbell; the Fine Arts and St. Lawrence String Quartets; the Gryphon Trio; the Hilliard Ensemble and many others.
He is frequently heard on CBC Radio. In the fall of 1993 he performed a North American premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki String Trio for the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York City. In 1995 he appeared as a soloist with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, during the Takefu Music Festival in Japan. His experience in performing on period instruments includes concerts with Sinfonia Calcania of Boston; the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra of Boston; and in master-classes and workshops with Jeanne Lamon, Jaap Schroder and Ken Slovik. His pedagogical experience includes eight years of teaching violin and coaching master classes at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada; as well as teaching chamber music as an artist-in-residence at Trenton College, Furman University, Interlochen Center for the Arts, and many clinics and festivals throughout Canada and the USA. Presently he studies under Roman Totenberg at Boston University while completing his DMA in violin performance.