Marta Klimasara

Marta Klimasara’s exceptional musical qualities led to her being awarded first prize for percussion by the jury of the ARD International Music Competition in the autumn of 2001. The Polish musician, who also received the Audience Award, is graced not only with charm and a captivating personality but extraordinary artistic sensitivity and great versatility. She demonstrates her command of the soft and sometimes intimate sound of the marimba just as unerringly as she overcomes the other challenges of this multifaceted percussion instrument of nearly infinite possibilities.

Early in her career, it was not at all clear that she would become a percussionist. A student of piano in her hometown of Sosnowiec, she took up percussion at the age of 12. Four years later, under the tutelage of Krzystof Jaguszewski, she won several national awards. Shortly afterwards, she launched her career as a soloist with the Silesian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. In 1994, she moved to Germany to further her education with Klaus Treßelt in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst of Stuttgart. She has lived in Stuttgart since then and, in 2004, she was appointed to a teaching position at the said university.

Today, Marta Klimasara is an internationally acclaimed percussionist. Her reputation is the result of her tours of France, Sweden, Japan and South Africa and her numerous successes in international competitions. Before winning the ARD International Music Competition—among the most prestigious worldwide—, she had already won first prize in the second World Marimba Competition (Japan, 1999) and second prize in the third Krzysztof Penderecki International Competition of contemporary music in Kraków. She has also received scholarships from Yamaha Music Europe Foundation and Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg and was commended by the European Cultural Foundation in Strasbourg for her outstanding musical and artistic personality. She has performed with orchestras such as the RSO Stuttgart, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Warsaw National Philharmonic, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the RSO Saarbrücken, and she regularly participates in international festivals in cities such as Vienna, Paris, Warsaw and Saint Petersburg. She also records for radio and television with broadcasters such as Bayerischer Rundfunk, Hessischer Rundfunk, SWR, France Musique, SR 2 KulturRadio and Deutschlandradio.