Edward Wolanin began his piano stud­ies with Urszula Hop when he was 5 years old. He grad­u­ated from the sec­ondary music school in Rzeszów (Krystyna Matheis-Domaszowska’s class). As the youngest stu­dent in the his­tory of the Acad­emy he began to study at the Fry­deryk Chopin Acad­emy of Music in War­saw when he was 15. He stud­ied with Pro­fes­sor Jan Ekier, Pro­fes­sor Bro­nisława Kawalla and Pro­fes­sor March­wiński (in his cham­ber music class). Fol­low­ing his grad­u­a­tion he con­tin­ued his stud­ies with Pro­fes­sor Jan Ekier as a post-graduate student.

Edward Wolanin has suc­cess­fully com­peted in many com­pe­ti­tions at home and abroad. When he was still a stu­dent he won the F. Chopin com­pe­ti­tion and the Young Pianists’ com­pe­ti­tion at the Pol­ish Piano Fes­ti­val in Słupsk (1984) and was awarded schol­ar­ships. As a mem­ber of the Pol­ish team at the 11^th Fry­deryk Chopin Piano Com­pe­ti­tion in War­saw he was given the prize for the best Pol­ish pianist who did not make it to stage III. Three weeks after the War­saw com­pe­ti­tion he won 2^nd prize at the 3^rdInter­na­tional Chopin Com­pe­ti­tion in Palma de Mal­lorka (1985). Sev­eral years later (1989) he won 1^stprize at the 3^rd Euro­pean Chopin Com­pe­ti­tion in Darm­stadt and a num­ber of spe­cial prizes for the best ren­di­tion of stud­ies, noc­turnes, polon­aises and mazurkas.

Edward Wolanin’s con­cert reper­tory is very large and cov­ers all his­tor­i­cal peri­ods — from Domenico Scar­latti to con­tem­po­rary com­posers, espe­cially Romuald Twar­dowski. The pianist has per­formed as a soloist with many orches­tras includ­ing the Pol­ish Radio Orches­tra, the national Phil­har­monic Orches­tra in War­saw, Andrzej Mysiński’s Con­certo Avenna and the Pol­ish Radio National Sym­phony Orches­tra in Katow­ice. He has played with many great con­duc­tors includ­ing Bogusław Madey, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Tadeusz Stru­gała, Antoni Wit, Tadeusz Woj­ciechowski and Marek Pijarowski.

Edward Wolanin also likes to play cham­ber music very much and has per­formed with such out­stand­ing per­form­ing artists as Jerzy Artysz, Tomasz Strahl, Krzysztof Jakow­icz and Kuba Jakow­icz. He has played in many Euro­pean coun­tries and cul­tural cen­tres includ­ing Paris, Lon­don, Vienna (Bösendorfer-Saal), Rot­ter­dam, Berlin (Char­lot­ten­burg, Schaus­piel­haus), Prague and Moscow and also in Japan, China, Iraq, Jor­dan, Tunisia, Kuwait, Nige­ria, Mex­ico and USA. He has taken part in renowned music fes­ti­vals: Duszniki Zdrój, Słupsk, Antonin, Mar­i­anske Lazne (Marien­bad), Nohant and also as a cham­ber orches­tra mem­ber in Schleswig-Holstein and Montpelier.

Edward Wolanin has made many radio and tele­vi­sion record­ings and has also recorded many solo and cham­ber music records. Dux pub­lished two of his records with F. Chopin’s music in 2000–2001 (Pre­ludes op. 28, Mazurkas op. 30, tran­scrip­tions of cham­ber works and Alle­gro de con­cert op. 46 for piano and sym­phony orches­tra. Three records with Romuald Twardowski’s music have also been pub­lished recently: Con­cert for piano and orches­tra, Lit­tle con­cert for piano and ensem­ble and Cam­pane Ifrom the “Bell Sym­phonies” for piano (Acte Préal­able). Dux pub­lished two records of cham­ber music in 2006: Józef Wieniawski’s Sonata D minor for vio­lin and piano op. 24 with Patrycja Pieku­towska (this record was nom­i­nated to the Fry­deryk 2006 award) and two cycles of songs by Karol Szy­manowski,Nurs­ery Rhymes op. 49 with Kaz­imiera Iłłakowiczówna’s lyrics and Songs of a fairy­tale princess to the lyrics of Zofia Szy­manowska. Recorded with Anna Mikoła­jczyk. Johannes Brahms’s Sonatas for vio­lin and piano, recorded with Erika Dobosiewicz for Quin­decim record com­pany, were pub­lished in Mex­ico in 2007.

The artist in the opin­ions of the reviewers

Of the many per­form­ers who pre­sented them­selves at the con­cert of Pro­fes­sor Kawalla’s for­mer stu­dents I par­tic­u­larly enjoyed lis­ten­ing to Edward Wolanin, now him­self a post­doc­toral fel­low at the Fry­deryk Chopin Acad­emy of Music, by the way. When he won first prize at the 3^rd Chopin Com­pe­ti­tion in Darm­stadt he was, above all, a bril­liant vir­tu­oso; now, in two of the Bach-Busoni Chorals, Wachet auf and Nun komm’ der Hei­den Hei­land, he demon­strated great con­cen­tra­tion, nobil­ity and refine­ment and strength of expres­sion prov­ing that he has deep­ened his inter­pre­ta­tion within these last few years.

Józef Kański “Ruch Muzyczny”

Wolanin’s style is mature and com­posed, con­fi­dent and with great sense of form (…) The (Chopin) Pre­ludes in Edward Wolanin’s inter­pre­ta­tion are not only a col­lec­tion of musi­cal minia­tures. Heard together, they assem­ble into a com­plete story. In the four Mazurkas op. 30, on the other hand, the pianist envi­sions the cheer­ful albeit slightly pen­sive Chopin as he takes in the gen­tle Mazov­ian land­scape from afar. It is worth adding that the artist has been awarded many for­eign prizes for his ren­der­ing of the Mazurkas which — as we all know — are the quin­tes­sence of Chopin’s inter­pre­ta­tive problems.

Józef Kański “Ruch Muzyczny”

Acte Préal­able pub­lish­ers have been inde­fati­ga­bly pro­mot­ing less known Pol­ish music (…) After the works of such com­posers as Grażyna Bacewicz, August Freyer, Karol Rathaus, Hen­ryk Opieński and Fran­ciszek Les­sel, the time has come for Romuald Twar­dowski (born in 1930) (…) As far as I am con­cerned, Sim­fo­nia di Cam­pane played by Edward Wolanin (Cam­pane I) and Szabolcs Esztényi (Cam­pane I and II) are the best. They are full of colour and chang­ing moods and the pianists ren­der the spe­cific, slightly impres­sion­is­tic cli­mate of this com­po­si­tion superbly (…).