Sikorzak-Olek, Anna
A long-time active concert soloist and chamber musician. She was the first to perform and record harp pieces by Bogusław Schaeffer, Tadeusz Paciorkiewicz, Marceli Popławski, Maciej Małecki, Aleksander Tansman, Piotr Moss, Mikołaj Hertel, Stanisław Moryto, Marta Ptaszyńska, Jerzy Maksymiuk, and Waldemar Kazanecki. She has also recorded extensively for the Polish Radio collection (concertos by Witold Lutosławski, Marcel Grandjany, George Frideric Handel, Andrzej Panufnik, Thomas Daniel Schlee, Claude Debussy, and Mikołaj Hertel). Most of these recordings have been released under such labels as DUX, CPO, and Albany Records.
The artist’s discography comprises several dozen titles, three of which received Fryderyk nominations. She had recorded film and theatre music by Zbigniew Preisner, Piotr Moss, Paweł Szymański, Michał Lorenc, Maciej Zieliński, Włodek Pawlik, Paweł Mykietyn, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, and many others. In 1978 she took up work at the F. Nowowiejski Philharmonic in Olsztyn. She was later a member of the NOSPR and Sinfonia Varsovia. She now collaborates with the Polish Radio Orchestra in Warsaw. Anna Sikorzak-Olek teaches harp at the Academy of Music in Gdańsk and an experimental class for gifted students at the H. Wieniawski State Music School in Poznań. She was the founder of the Harp for Kids Association (2008, at Warsaw’s Karol Kurpiński State Music School), of Poland’s only children’s harp ensemble Wiktorska Harp Open, and of Polish Harp Music sheet music publishing house, which she continues to run. She also composes small-scale educational pieces.
She was the editor of the Catalogue of Harp Pieces by Polish Composers (2003) and Orchestral Studies for Harp in Works by Polish Composers (2023). She has significantly contributed to promoting the figure of Karol (Charles) Gröll (1770–1852), Polish inventor of a double-action harp. Sikorzak-Olek is a member of Polish Harp Society and Fides et Ratio Academic Society at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw.