After a couple of years living in Austra and the United States Piotr Pawlak, a Polish born musician, settled down in a young city called Yangsan, in South Korea. He leads his own band Piotr Pawlak Jazztet, that started way back in 2010 in Europe, for whom he composes and arranges music. He also often serves as a sidemen in various other groups. Check out the projects tab for more recent musical endeavors. Piotr together with his wife, singer MinJin Seo, teaches at their private music institute <PM Music Hub> in Yangsan. Piotr is also a music manager for the 4NowQuartet band.
Piotr is currently employed as a Drum Professor at Daegu Arts University in Daegu.
Piotr was born in 1985 in Poland in a small industrial city called Konin. He began playing classical percussion instruments at the age of 9. In 2008 he graduated from the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznan (Poland), a 3-year undergraduate program in classical percussion (2005-2008). During his classical studies, Piotr got employed as a soloist/performer in the Orchestra Ensemble of Music Theater in Poznan (Poland). Piotr also occasionally performed with the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra.
Afterwards, he moved to Graz in Southern Austria. At the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz he received another undergraduate degree, this time in jazz performance, and a minor degree in composition (2008-2012). There he started a project under his name – Piotr Pawlak Jazztet. With this group, Piotr self-produced a debut album entitled “Wist-Werk” (2011), supported by the Land of Styria Department of Culture (Kulture Steiermark). This group toured in 9 European countries and performed at festivals, universities and clubs. As of 2012, they had entered the finals of 3 big international jazz competitions winning one of them, and coming back with awards from 2 others. The festivals were:
• April – The Best Band Award at the 48th Jazz Nad Odra Festival, Wroclaw, Poland;
• July – 2nd Prize Award at the 36th Getxo International Jazz Competition, Getxo, Spain;
• September – The Finalists of 5th European Jazz Contest, Rome, Italy.
In summer 2010 Piotr also performed at the biggest German cruise lines, AIDA.
In 2013, Piotr moved to New York City. He completed a jazz performance masters program at the CUNY Queens College Aaron Copland School of Music and received a Master of Arts degree. In 2014 he was awarded two scholarships: “Discimus ut Serviamus” award
from the Queens College for serving the College and Aaron Copland School of Music community and “USS Donald & Mary Ellen Passantino Scholarship” for his hard work and commitment to achieving academic success.
During his 3.5 years of stay in New York City Piotr had a chance to perform more than 400 times and participated in 2 studio recordings. He was a sideman in various ensembles: from small jazz trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and big-bands. His artistic resume also includes musicals and symphonic performances.
Apart from performing music, Piotr’s interests also reach towards music business. In August 2014, Piotr was accepted for an internship program as an Editorial Assistant at the Boosey and Hawkes Inc., one of the largest classical music publishers in the world. He was also an intern music librarian and a fellow music librarian for 2015 and 2016 Glimmerglass Opera Festival in Cooperstown, NY.