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The Polish harpsichordist, Alina Ratkowska, studied at Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw, where she graduated with honours as a harpsichordist by Leszek Kądracki. She also studied at the Gdańsk University of Technology (post-graduate studies). From 1999 to 2002 she studied harpsichord with Andrea Marcon and basso continuo with Jesper Christensen/Jörg-Andreas Bötticher at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, the Academy of Early Music in Basel. Winner of the first prize in Paola Bernardi International Harpsichord Competition in Bologna in 2005. She won the 3rd prize at the van Vlaanderen International Early Music Competition held in Bruges (Belgium). That was one of her most precious awards and distinctions, which she won together with the Esperanto ensemble she conducted. She was finalist of International Harpsichord Competitions in Warsaw and Budapest.
In 2006 Alina Ratkowska founded the the Goldberg Festival in Gdańsk, of which she is the director. She is also a lecturer at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.
In 2009, the readers of Gazeta Wyborcza daily voted to award Alina Ratkowska with the 'Sztorm Roku' [Storm of the Year] prize. The Mayor of the City of Gdańsk conferred on her the award for Young Artists in the Field of Culture in 2008. She has received scholarships of the of Culture and Art, Voivod of Pomerania, Culture Foundation, and many others.
Alina Ratkowska is a member of Goldberg Baroque Ensemble. The group specialises in performing the music preserved inthe collection of the Gdańsk Library, Polish Academy of Science. The ensemble records this music in the series entitled the 'Musical Heritage of the City of Gdańsk'.
For her first solo disc Alina Ratkowska has chosen J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988). |
