Chair of Theatre and Film Music

The Section was established from the transformation of the Studio of Theatre and Film Music, which had been created in 2015 as the result of many years of activity in the field of education in theatre and film composition. Already in the 1980s, these initiatives were developed within the then Chair of Composition and Music Theory (and, after 2009, within the Chair of Composition) by Dr. Zbigniew Karnecki.

At his initiative, at the end of the 1990s, a unique nationwide program of cooperation was launched, bringing together students from Wrocław’s art schools: the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music, the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts, and the then Ludwik Solski State Higher School of Theatre in Kraków, Wrocław Branch (now the Stanisław Wyspiański Academy of Theatre Arts). This program created an invaluable platform for young artists, enabling collaboration between musicians, visual artists, actors, and directors. The program continues in the present-day work of the Section, one of whose aims is the realization of projects in the field of dependent, non-autonomous music.

The Section particularly strives to prepare future composers and music theorists for conscious engagement with complex, interdisciplinary works of art and for practical exploration of the relationships between music and words, images, and movement. Each academic year, approximately ten projects are carried out that consist of creating theatre performances featuring acting students of the Stanisław Wyspiański Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków, Wrocław Branch, with stage design prepared by students of the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts, and music composed by composition students from the Chair of Composition, Conducting, Music Theory, and Music Therapy.

Additionally, each academic year composition students write music for around twenty visual miniatures created by students of the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. Since 2010, joint projects of the Chair of Composition (now the Institute of Composition) and the Chair of Media Art of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, under the title Image – Sound, have presented audiovisual works by students of both institutions.

Since its establishment, the Section has also organized open meetings with renowned directors. Regarding its educational activities, the Section defines the scope of theoretical, theoretical-practical, and practical courses devoted to issues related to music in syncretic works, addressed to students of the Faculty. The Section closely cooperates with the CHair of New Media and the Studio of Computer Composition.

It has its own lecture hall equipped with essential A/V tools for its activities, as well as a dedicated computer lab – a studio with specialized software available to lecturers and students of the Section.