Born in Gdynia (Poland) in 1981, he graduated with honours from the Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw in 2006, before obtaining a PhD in music composition from the University of California in San Diego in 2015. Also in 2015, he settled in Berlin. In 2012–19 he curated the Instalakcje music festival at Warsaw’s Nowy Theatre. 

His music often redefines traditional concert formats and the relationship between listener / spectator and sound. It incorporates site-specific, participatory projects, elements of musical and instrumental theatre, and is characterised by immersive and corporeal sound. Blecharz has composed works notably for ensembles and institutions such as Kwadrofonik, Beijing Forbidden City Orchestra, Klangforum Wien, Royal String Quartet, Aviva Endean, Jenn Torrence, Ryan Muncy, Rupert Enticknap, International Contemporary Ensemble, Musiques Nouvelles, Collegium Novum Zürich, KNM Ensemble, Asian Art Ensemble, Flute O’Clock, LutosAir, ensemble mosaik, Hashtag Ensemble, Music Cooperative, and Polish National Radio Orchestra in Katowice. He has received commissions from the Grand Theatre – Polish National Opera, State Theatre in Darmstadt, TR Warszawa, Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, Warsaw Autumn, Szczecin Philharmonic, J. Słowacki Theatre in Cracow, Goethe Institute in Warsaw, and many other institutions. He has been featured at numerous festivals including Roskilde, New Theatre, Huddersfield, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Eklekto Geneva Percussion Center, Teatar & TD in Zagreb, JEMP Festival / Arts Territory in London, Jewish Culture Festival, Disappearing Berlin-Schinkel Pavillon and others. His works have been performed at festivals such as MATA (New York), Salzburg Biennale, Klangwerkstadt (Berlin), Bendigo Festival of Exploratory Music (Australia), Mostly Mozart (New York), Rainy Days (Luxembourg), Time of Music (Viitasaari), ImPulsTanz (Vienna), MaerzMusik, Sacrum Profanum, and the Premieres Festival in Katowice. In 2016, Blecharz took part in Ari Benjamin Meyers’ 15-day installation, composing in public for four days at Berlin’s National Gallery of Contemporary Art Hamburger Bahnhof. In 2020, the Radialsystem hosted a retrospective of his work, presented as part of the New Empathies festival. In 2022, he worked on two large-scale musical installations: Queer Magick Intervention (with Vala T. Foltyn) on the former site of the NSDAP rallies in Nuremberg (commissioned by the Musik Installationen festival) and Treehumana in the former Berlin Oberspree power station (with Matthias Schoenijahn and Paulina Miu Kühling).

In 2012, he received a scholarship prize “for perfection in music composition” at the Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, and in 2013 he was selected as one of winners of the IMPULS International Composition Competition in Graz. He was nominated for the Passport Award of the Polish Polityka weekly (2012), PKN Orlen’s Poles with Verve Award (2013), and Polish Radio Channel 3 Culture Man of the Year (2013). In 2013 his opera–installation Transcryptum was nominated to “cultural event of the year” by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. In 2015 a choral theatre piece with Blecharz’s music Mutter Courage und ihre Hunden, directed by Marta Górnicka, commissioned by the Brunswick State Theatre, was acclaimed as one of the best performances in Germany. In 2016 he received a music theatre award for the Best Performance of Contemporary Play (Warsaw/ Wałbrzych). In 2017 he received the Siemens Foundation Scholarship for composing other states_horizon for 16 performers and 16 wireless loudspeakers at Zurich’s Collegium Novum. In 2019, he was composer-in-residence at the prestigious Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy and was awarded the Progetto Positano for lifetime achievement from the ensemble mosaik. In 2020 he was resident composer at the Rümlingen Festival, and in 2021 he received a scholarship from the Akademie der Künste, followed in 2022 by a similar accolade from the Capital City of Warsaw. In 2023, his soundscape for Luc Perceval’s A Long Day, staged at the National Stary Theatre in Cracow, was awarded at the International Divina Commedia Festival. 

Since 2012 Rafał Blecharz has cooperated with sculptor Ewa Maria Śmigielska, who authored the scenography for his Transcryptum and Body-Opera. He has written music for largescale installations by Śmigielska such as Wobec (Nowy Theatre, 2018), Follow the Dragon (Polish Sculpture Centre in Orońsko, 2021), and Phoenix Mantra (Inne Towarzystwo Gallery, Warsaw 2022). He also writes music music for dance and theatre shows, and has cooperated with choreographers and directors such as Jacek Łumiński, Katarzyna Kalwat, Karol Tymiński, Wojciech Grudziński, Marta Ziółek, Natalia Korczakowska, Thea Reifler, Phila Bergmann, and Gosia Wdowik. 

Selected works (from 2013): Transcryptum, opera–installation for female voice, cello, alto flute, two percussion, two accordions and double bass clarinet (2011–13), Small Talks for accordion reed box and baritone saxophone (2012–13), DFRGMNTD (I am) for two pianos and two percussion (2013), September. The Next Reading for voice, piano four hands and four percussion (2013–14), (one) [year](later) for voice, flute, erhu, pipa, guzheng, yang qin and percussion (2014), blacksnowfalls for timpani (2014), Liminal Studies for string quartet (2014), ocean is not enough for 13 performers (2014), Counter-Earth for clarinet, voice and death whistle (one performer, 2015), no more stories for two flutists and video (2015), A Bright, Empty Space for woodwind quintet and electronic sounds (2015), Axis for rhythm generators, analogue synthesizers and cello (2016), ParkOpera, opera–installation (2016), Soundwork for eight performers (2016), House of Sound, concert–installation (2017), other states_horizon for 16 performers and 16 wireless loudspeakers (2016), Body-Opera, opera–installation (2015–18), Soundtouch for percussion and four participants (2017–18), Opera FIASKO for orchestra and choir (2017–18; version for voice, Paetzold flute, accordion and electronics, 2018–19), Rechnitz. Opera – The Exterminating Angel for six actors and cello ensemble, after a drama by Elfriede Jelinek (2018), dream-notes for sopranino saxophone and electronics (2019), Symphony no. 1 for orchestra in four groups (2019), Symphony no. 2 for an orchestra open to all types of musicians (2019), Stimm[i](u)ng for reversed cello and 1–4 instruments (also version for solo cello and two cellos, 2019), Manifesto for orchestra (2019), Mantra for Muranów, performative installation for choir (2020), Sonata for keyboard and tape, sound sculpture (2020), Songlines, music to a sculpture exhibition by Ewa Maria Śmigielska Follow the Dragon (2021), Rhizome for saxophone and 60 wireless speakers (with Bendik Giske, 2021), Queer Magick Intervention, performative installation (with Vala T. Foltyn, 2022), Treehumana, concert installation for voices and Paetzold flutes (collective work, 2022), Arbor/Rhizome for minimum two recorders (2022), Berlin Prysm for voice, piano and five wireless speakers (2022), FIELD 1–8, cycle for various ensembles (2017–23), Symphony no. 3 for 200 wireless speakers and five performers (2019–2023), Concerto for Piano and Wireless Speakers (2021–23), Phoenix Mantra, music to a sculpture exhibition by Ewa Maria Śmigielska for large vibrating steel mirrors and transducers (2023).