about pianist daniel wnukowski
concert pianist
Whether it be destiny, some rare astrophysical occurrence, serendipity or a just another random convergence of events…you have stumbled upon my piano music blog!
I realize there are hundreds of other things you could be doing right now and so I wish that the time you spend here be as mutually stimulating, engaging and inspiring as it has been for me.
On this page you’ll find a few words about me. Pianists’ biographies can sometimes look so formal and forbidding, so instead I’ll walk you through the most important events of my life as they occurred and leave you to find the profound ‘existential’ meaning into how they shaped me into the person I am today.
pronunciation FYI
I always subdivide my name in 3 syllables to make it easier to pronounce. Also, in Polish the W’s are pronounced as V’s, so the phonetic spelling of my last name is vnoo-koff’-skee.
i think therefore i am
“So quiet and shy but always brightly smiling!”
My parents will never forget the twinkle in my eye when at the age of 3 and a half I saw a grand piano in a Toronto music store whose outer parts were made of clear glass; the kind of piano that would allow its viewer to see the intricate details of a piano’s mechanism. We couldn’t afford a piano right away, so for the first six months they bought me a small Hammond organ to check if my strong desire to take piano lessons were indeed sincere.
Money was always rather tight in the household, and growing up as the second child meant sleeping on the living room sofa for many years. But I loved my family dearly and we survived the hardest of times but staying together and nurturing a strong sense of communication based on trust and respect.
multiculturalism
Growing up in Canada exposes a young musician to a wide variety of different cultures and musical styles and sure enough I had absorbed everything from the Polish folk dancing performed live in my living room to the 80’s pop rock and punk scene.
There are two memories which stand out clearly…
- My embarrassing dance lessons in the Mazurka, Oberek, Kujawiak at age 6 did serve their purpose in helping me to understand the piano music of Chopin.
- My first composition for piano and voice written at age 4 and entitled “My Heart” was a cross between Elvis Presley and Hugo Wolf and was banned in my house until I would grow up to be more ’sexually mature’.
the longest journey is the journey inwards
What was meant to be a simple summer vacation 7000 km away in Poland at age 15 turned out to be a long and confounded three years! A brief encounter with the director of the Chopin Academy in Warsaw quickly spiraled into a long series of engagements all across Europe.
Only one month later I was asked to perform my piano music compositions among other works at the National Theatre in Warsaw for a theme concert entitled “Jutro Nie Bedzie Wojny” or “Tomorrow there will be no war” in front of about 2000 people.
In Faustian terms, I had sacrificed my prime adolescent years which should have been spent partying, graduating, socializing for an impressive career which would involve arduous, long hours spent practicing sometimes without sleeping for 72 hours.
High School, you may ask? That was done through correspondence, further impeding any possible social contact with the outside world. The only people I really connected with were the many audiences I performed for which would arrive and whistle away like the colorful autumn leaves. But it is here that I truly learned to love my audiences …without them there would be no point for me in serving as that important medium which brings the composer’s music to life.
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“Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.”
From “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman
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