Coordinator of Piano Area Assistant Professor of Piano and Collaborative PianoCoordinator of Piano Area
Polish Pianist Magdalena Adamek holds a Master of Arts in Piano Performance from the Chopin Academy of Music (now Chopin University of Music) in Warsaw, Poland, and a Doctor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Alberta, Canada. Her principal teachers include Professor Barbara Hesse-Bukowska, Professor Jacques Després, and Janet Scott-Hoyt. She also worked with renowned pianists-pedagogues in masterclasses such as Halina Czerny-Stefańska, Kevin Fitzgerald, Kyoko Hashimoto, and Stéphane Lemelin.
Adamek’s professional career spans a wide range of artistic and academic pursuits, including extensive work as a soloist and chamber musician, teacher, recording artist, and adjudicator at competitions and music festivals.
Adamek is currently Coordinator of Keyboard Studies and full-time piano faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she teaches applied piano, piano ensembles, accompanying while also collaborating with faculty and guest artists on stylistically and culturally diverse projects.
A versatile and dedicated performer, Adamek has appeared in solo and chamber recitals across Poland, Germany, Austria, Lithuania, France, China, Canada, and the United States. Her repertoire embraces a wide stylistic spectrum, with a special emphasis on Polish composers. Furthermore, as part of her involvement in the Virginia Music Teachers’ Association and Richmond Music Teachers Association, Magdalena has presented numerous masterclasses, performances and workshops on topics such as piano technique, performance anxiety, and musical interpretation. Her scholarly work includes articles on Feliks Nowowiejski and Tadeusz Kościuszko, as well as the book The Unknown Face of Feliks Nowowiejski (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008), which offers the comprehensive study of Nowowiejski’s complete piano solo works.
Her discography includes five CDs on the Polish label Acte Prèalable, featuring world-premiere recordings of works by Polish composers including Feliks Nowowiejski, Romuald Twardowski, and Józef Elsner. Most recently, she released a recording of Gregory Fritze’s Spanish Meditations and Dances for Euphonium and Piano with euphoniumist Robert Powers (Mark Masters, 2025). This project has led to a performance at the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference in Valencia, Spain, as well as a series of enthusiastically received recitals with leading tuba and euphonium performers from Japan, Hungary, Germany, South Korea, and the United States.
Adamek is the recipient of numerous scholarly and performance awards, among them: 2nd Prize and special award for the best performance of a Chopin work at the International Milosz Magin Piano Competition (Paris), 3rd Prize, Piano Trio category, Kiejstut Bacewicz International Chamber Music Competition (Łódź, Poland), 3rd Prize, National Piano Competition (Warsaw) Distinction, National Chamber Music Competition (Warsaw).
Through her continuous insight into the piano repertoire in performance and teaching, Adamek has received significant recognition in North America by being awarded the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship, Dissertation Fellowship, Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Award, FS Chia PhD Scholarship, Beryl Barns Memorial Graduate Scholarship, Harriet Snowball Winspear Graduate Prize in Performing Arts (University of Alberta, Canada), the Marek Jabłoński Piano Scholarship (Banff International Keyboard Festival, Canada), and two scholarships from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Adamek’s artistic projects have been generously supported by prestigious institutions and organizations such as the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies (University of Alberta), Virginia Commonwealth University, the Polonia Foundation of Alberta, the Polish Culture Society of Edmonton, the Polish Federation of Women in Edmonton, the Polish Combatants Society of Edmonton, the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Vancouver, the Alberta Registered Music Teachers’ Association, the Richmond Music Teachers Association, and the Kosciuszko Foundation of America.