Biography

Janusz Wojtarowicz (born 1971 in Rabka-Zdrój) – accordionist, composer, arranger, music producer and composer of film and theatre music. Founder and leader of the accordion trio Motion Trio and the author of most of the pieces the ensemble performs.

Founder of the AKORDEONUS label, which releases Motion Trio albums and accordion scores.

He is the originator of the idea of making the accordion trio – like the string quartet – a classical performing ensemble, and thus of introducing the term “accordion trio” into musical literature as the name for a work written for three accordions.

Author of the handbook for composers “How to Write for the Accordion” (AKORDEONUS, 2007).

Education and early career

He began learning the accordion and the piano at the age of six with his father, Eugeniusz, in Rabka-Zdrój. He graduated from the Fryderyk Chopin State Music Secondary School in Kraków. He studied the accordion at the Academy of Music in Kraków and – privately – the organ with Prof. Andrzej Białko.

As a soloist and chamber musician he received numerous awards at accordion competitions.

In the 1980s he played in the family accordion trio Trio Wojtarowiczów, led by his father, Eugeniusz. That ensemble became the forerunner of Motion Trio.

He began his work as a composer in 1992, writing music for songs performed by Magdalena Cielecka, Beata Fudalej, Agnieszka Schimscheiner and Grzegorz Muzyka – at that time students and graduates of the Acting Department of the State Theatre School (PWST) in Kraków.

Inspired by the work of Zygmunt Konieczny, he took part in the film music workshops Konieczny ran. Afterwards Konieczny introduced him to Piotr Skrzynecki and invited him to perform at a concert in the Piwnica pod Baranami cabaret. It was there, in 1992, that Wojtarowicz's music was heard for the first time.

Artistic and teaching activity

He has given masterclasses at, among others, the University of Chicago, the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Conservatorio di Musica Tchaikovsky di Catanzaro in Italy, the National Academy of Music in Sofia, the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat (Israel) and the Motion Music Festival in Czasław.

For Motion Trio he arranged works by Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Wojciech Kilar and Michael Nyman, and performed them with the trio at venues including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Barbican Centre in London and the National Philharmonic in Warsaw.

With Motion Trio, also performing his own music, he has given concerts in 43 countries – many times in the United States, Canada and all over Europe (in France alone the trio has played more than 200 concerts), as well as in Japan, China, Russia, Israel, Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea, New Caledonia, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and other countries.