Born in Cracow in 1954, she graduated from the city's Academy of Music, where she studied composition (with Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar) and theory of music (with Józef Patkowski). Since 1979 she has been working in the Electroacoustic Music Studio of the Cracow Academy of Music. It was there that she realized her first pieces for tape. She subsequently worked in the Polish Radio Experimental Studio in Warsaw, the Institute for Electro-Acoustic Music (ems) in Stockholm, eas in Bratislava and the grame Studio (Groupe de Recherche Appliquée en Musique Electroacoustique) in Lyon. Her compositions have been featured at new music festivals in Poland (Warsaw, Poznań, Wrocław, Gdańsk, Cracow) and abroad (Nuremberg, Cologne, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Stockholm, Oslo, Bratislava, Lyon, Washington, Lviv, Minsk, Bourges, Strasbourg, South Korea).

Selected works (since 1980): Modus for tape (1980), Spatial System for small orchestra and electronics (1980), Pulsations for tape (1983), Mictlan for tape (1987), Mictlan II for accordion, digital echo-generating device and tape (1988), Yes and No for tape (1990), At the Roots for tape (1990-91), Lenyon for tape (1994-95), Patjan for percussion and tape (1996-97), TaBaMa for solo tape (1997-98), TaBar for electronically transformed double-bass and computer sound layer (1998-2000), Zakopane liryki for electronically transformed clarinet and computer sound layer (1999-2000).

TaBar for electronically transformed double-bass and computer sound layer was composed to a commission from the Polish Radio Experimental Studio in 1998-2000. The structures used in the tape part had been earlier composed and recorded by the outstanding Polish double-bass player and composer Tadeusz Wielecki, who contributed his own interpretative ideas. During the tape realization process in the studio, I strove to retain the richness and complexity of Wielecki's performance and supplemented it with some original elements which could be achieved solely with the use of advanced computer technology. I used the grm Tools programme and the Sonic Solutions and ProTools systems. In this way, the computer helped me in the transformation of the double-bass sound, in high-precision editing, in multiplying and juxtaposing diverse structures, in creating an illusion of free movement of sound in a multidimensional space and achieving changing depth and perspective.
The solo double-bass part which I composed and which was realized during concert performance by Tadeusz Wielecki creates a specific kind of relation with the sound of the same instrument transformed and recomposed in the studio and the structures previously improvised by the same soloist. This creates an interesting interpretative situation based on tangling and interaction of the composer and the performer.
I would like to thank Barbara Okoń-Makowska for the microphone recording and cooperation in creating the tape part and Ewa Tubelewicz-Guziołek for studio recording of the first performance. It took place during a concert of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio in the Witold Lutosławski Polish Radio Hall in November 2000. The solo part was performed by Tadeusz Wielecki to whom the piece is dedicated. Duration: ca. 14'
Magdalena Długosz