prof. dr hab. Anna Rutkowska-Schock

Prof. dr hab. Anna Rutkowska-Schock

was born in Wrocław. She began her piano education in the piano class of Professor Helena Furmanowicz-Kurzyńska. As a pupil and student, she was a laureate of numerous national piano competitions and a finalist in the 4th European Chopin Competition in Darmstadt in 1992.
In 1996, she was a laureate of the Young Artists' Stage at the Polish Piano Festival in Słupsk, and in 1997, she received a scholarship from Professor Madeleine Forte to study at Boise State University in Idaho (USA), where she earned a Bachelor of Art in Piano Performance with Magna Cum Laude distinction. She completed her master's degree in piano with Professor Grzegorz Kurzyński at the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław, also with distinction.
In 2003, she received the award for best chamber pianist at the IBLA Grand Prize International Music Competition in Sicily. As one of the competition's main winners, she has performed in numerous concerts in the USA (performing numerous times at Carnegie Hall, Yamaha Hall, New York University, Radford University, and the University of Arkansas) and England. Anna Rutkowska-Schock has been the official pianist at international music competitions in Rome (2004), Peru (2005), Slovakia (2006, 2008, 2010), Sicily (2004-2015), Budapest (2022), and at more than a dozen national competitions in various Polish centers. Since 2019, the artist has been the official pianist of the biennial Australian Flute Festival, where she performs with many outstanding flutists from around the world, including Ian Clark and Alena Walentin, and accompanies participants in the international flute competition held as part of the festival. The pianist has been honored with dozens of diplomas for her outstanding performance of piano parts at national and international music competitions. She has served as a juror in several editions of the IBLA Grand Prize International Music Competition in Sicily and the 2011 International Piano Competition in Surabaya (Indonesia).

In the summer of 2006, she participated in the two-month Summer Academy of Music course and festival organized by the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, USA, to which she was invited following competition auditions at New York's Juilliard School. During this course, she honed her skills in the chamber music classes of Professors Anne Epperson and Jonathan Feldman.
In 2007, she served as artistic director of the American Music Festival held in Wrocław.

Since 2016, the pianist has been a member of the Australian chamber ensemble The Hourglass Ensemble, which promotes chamber music by contemporary Australian composers and performs the most valuable works of classical and romantic chamber music. The ensemble collaborates with many distinguished musicians (including Alexandra Osborne, concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra) and produces extensive programs for various instrumental and vocal-instrumental ensembles. Each ensemble project culminates in a concert at the Sydney Opera House (25 concerts to date). Carrying out chamber projects in Australia, the pianist has performed in over a dozen concert halls in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, and Newcastle. Furthermore, in 2025, the Hourglass Ensemble performed at two chamber music festivals: the Newcastle Music Festival and the 36th Glebe Music Festival. At the end of 2025, the ensemble was awarded, through a competitive process, Artists in Residence status by radio station 2MBS Fine Music Sydney for 2026.

The pianist has so far had the opportunity to collaborate with musicians from approximately 40 countries, performing on five continents. Her portfolio includes six CDs, including the 2024 Da Vinci Classics release "Her Journey," featuring works by female composers for flute and piano, which she recorded with flautist Ewa Kowalski. The album received a five-star review in the prestigious Italian magazine Musica and won the main prize in the 5th International Musical Eagles Competition – a statuette in the Foreign Phonographic Record category.

In addition to her concert activities, the pianist has delivered lectures at international piano conferences in the USA (New York, 2005), Indonesia (Surabaya, 2011), and Puerto Rico (San Germán, 2022). In June 2022, Anna Rutkowska-Schock performed as a soloist and chamber musician at the International Piano Chamber Music Festival in Puerto Rico (San Germán), organized by the Puerto Rico Center for Collaborative Piano, and subsequently accepted an invitation to serve on the festival's board.

Anna Rutkowska-Schock is employed in Wrocław as a professor at the K. Lipiński Academy of Music and Music in Wrocław and as a certified teacher at the Ryszard Bukowski State Secondary Music School in Wrocław. In 2017, she was awarded the Medal of Merit for Polish Culture by the Minister of Culture and Art, and in 2025, she received the title of professor in the field of musical art.

Below is a review of one of the concerts at the Sydney Opera House, during which the pianist performed, in addition to chamber works, Piano Sonata No. 1 by the renowned Australian composer Carl Vine:
https://sydneyartsguide.com.au/hourglass-ensemble-heart-of-australia-the-utzon-room/