Biography
Stefan Jasiniefta — Biography
Instrument & Education
Stefan Jasiniefta is a Polish lutenist, transcriber and composer whose principal instrument is the 13-course baroque lute. He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz, where he studied lute with Anton Birula and Anna Kowalska-Birula.
Artistic Work & Distinctions
Stefan’s artistic work encompasses early music performance, transcriptions of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire, and original compositions for lute and guitar.
Stefan is a ten-time prizewinner in international competitions, with two of those distinctions awarded for composition. He has performed at the Drgnienia Lutni festival and in recitals, concerts and other events devoted to early music.
Repertoire
His repertoire includes music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Silvius Leopold Weiss, Esaias Reusner, John Dowland, Diomedes Cato, Wojciech Długoraj, Alessandro Piccinini and Giovanni Zamboni. Stefan’s own transcriptions of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire for the 13-course baroque lute are also central to his work.
Compositions
His compositions for lute and guitar include Memories of Warsaw, Wanderings Across the Atlantic Seas, I Am with You, Road to Victory and The Procession of Sigismund III.
A defining aspect of his work is the development of the solo lute repertoire and the pursuit of a distinctive contemporary compositional language rooted in the instrument’s idiom, modality, virtuosity and musical narrative.