Michał Kondracki

Michał Kondracki was a Polish composer and music critic. He emigrated in 1940, first to Brazil, where he worked as a radio reporter, eventually moving in 1943 to the United States and settling near New York. He studied composition and piano at the Warszawa Conservatory until 1927, then in Paris through 1930, where he was a student of famous composers such as Paul Dukas, Paul Vidal, Arthur Honegger and Nadia Boulanger. Kondracki later worked as a composer, music critic and music journalist in Warszawa. He also collected folk music from various regions of Poland and was engaged in the organizing of musical organizations such as the “Polish Society for Contemporary Music”. In the US, he worked as a piano teacher and radio reporter who often interviewed Polish artists. During this time, he also frequently contributed articles to the magazine “Musical Movement”.

He won the national competition for the selection of the Polish contributions with his 1932 composition Żołnierze (Parade) subtitled Symphonic picture for orchestra. The length of the work was just under 6 minutes.