Zofia Helman is a Polish musicologist and an honorary member of the Polish Composers' Union.

Life

Zofia Helman was born in Radom

Radom

Radom is a city in central Poland with 223,397 inhabitants . It is located on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship , having previously been the capital of Radom Voivodeship ; 100 km south of Poland's capital, Warsaw.It is home to the biennial Radom Air Show, the largest and...

 and studied musicology at the University of Warsaw

University of Warsaw

The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...

 from 1954-59. In 1967 she defended her doctoral dissertation on the sound techniques of Karol Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski

Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...

.

Helman took a position at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Warsaw in 1959, and served as director of the Institute from 1991-1996. In 1991 she was appointed professor. She has also served as guest lecturer at the Department of Musicology at the Jagiellonian University, the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan

Poznan

Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

, the Krakow

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

 Academy of Music and at the universities of Mainz, Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...

, and the Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 Conservatory in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

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Helman has been a member of the Committee on Art, Academy of Sciences since 1981, and has sat on the Board of the Karol Szymanowski Foundation since 1996. She has served on the editorial boards of Polish Art Studies, Theatre, Opera, Ballet (Paris), Musicological Review and the PWM Music Encyclopedia. She is a member of musical and musicological associations including the International Musicological Society, the Robert-Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

-Gesellschaft Düsseldorf, Gesellschaft für Musikforschung in Kassel

Kassel

Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

, the Société Internationale d'Histoire Comparée du Théâtre de l'Opéra et du Ballet, the Polish Society of Composers, the Frederic Chopin in Warsaw Music Society and the Karol Szymanowski Musical Society in Zakopane

Zakopane

Zakopane , is a town in southern Poland. It lies in the southern part of the Podhale region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. From 1975 to 1998 it was in of Nowy Sącz Province, but since 1999 it has been in Lesser Poland Province. It had a population of about 28,000 as of 2004. Zakopane is a...

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Awards and honors

For her research work, Helman has been honored with the Golden Cross of Merit (1983), Award of the Ministry of Secondary Education (1986), Award of the Association of Polish Komozytorów (1988), Clio Award of the Department of History at the University of Warsaw (2000), the Karol Szymanowski Prize (2002), Annual Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2008) and an honorary membership in the Association of Polish Composers (2009).

Books

Helman is the author of texts including:

• Neoclassicism in Polish music of the twentieth century, Kraków: PWM 1985
• Roman Palester
  Roman Palester
  Roman Palester was a Polish composer of classical music. Palester composed his most significant work during the 1960s, and in 1964 was the first Polish musician to be awarded the Alfred Jurzykowski Prize. His work was individual in style, and not noticeably Polish in character.Palester was born in...
  
  : An Artist and His Work, London: Musica Iagellonica 1999
• Chopin letters (Vol. I, Warsaw 2010), co-author of new edition