Composer and sound artist with a postdoctoral degree in composition, professor at the Academy of Music in Poznań, recipient of a Fulbright Senior Award (2021) and the Poznań City Artistic Award (2022). He graduated in composition and choral conducting, as well as taking part in masterclasses taught notably by Karlheinz Stockhausen (Kürten), IRCAM, Tristan Murail, and Beat Furrer (Acanthes Metz), Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier, Zbigniew Karkowski, and International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt. He was an artist-in-residence at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (2014), “Zamek” Culture Centre in Poznań (2014), Kielce Philharmonic (2014/15), the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik Berlin (2016), Vertigo STARTS (2019, IRCAM and Centre Georges Pompidou), as well as the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Zapała does not recognize any boundaries between music acquired through academic education, experience of the counterculture, and collaborating with artists from other fields of art. His music has been presented at contemporary music festivals, jazz clubs, experimental music venues and in open urban spaces. He is the founder of Kołorking Muzyczny, an_ARCHE NewMusicFoundation, as well as numerous music ensembles and projects (focusing on contemporary composed, improvised, electronic, and experimental music). His original concept of Live Electronic Preparation (LEP Technique) was published (as a chapter) in the Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio (Oxford University Press, 2014). Sound actions and installations in urban space hold a special place in his art. These include Sensorium (a monumental immersive sound installation in the clock tower of Poznań’s Culture Centre) and Post-Apocalypsis (in the Polish pavilion at the 13th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space – the Gold Medal in the category of sound design, 2015). 

Selected works: Gon na ensemble and electronics (2008), Poster for string quartet and live electronics (2010), Nicolette for flute and live electronics (2010), Splitter for guitar and building wall (2011), Scanner for symphony orchestra, electronics and soundscape (2011), Cleaner for double bass and electronics (2013), Where is my mind!?!!, a sound installation triptych (2013), Ideograms I, II III for symphony orchestra (2013–14), Scherzo for ensemble (2014), Post-Apocalypsis, sound art with the Dead Baitz collective (2014), Sensorium, sound art (2014), Abysses/ Otchłanie, sound art (2015), Squares for triangles and live electronics (2016), Concentus Apparatus for string quartet and live electronics (2016), Irreversible for string quartet and live electronics (2017), Scrolling to Zero for organ, electronics and interactive audience participation (2017), No Meaning Detected for violin and electronics (2018), Judge Me Again for flute and live electronics (2018), Futility for five instruments, electronics, video and system of interactions (2020), Introverts’ collective for ensemble, electronics and system of interactions (2021), Solastalgia, an opera in five sections (2021), black serial MIDI music for multiple MIDI keyboards (2023).