Biography

Magdalena Oliferko-Storck is a musicologist, researcher and journalist, as well as a concert organist, chamber musician and conductor based in Switzerland.

Spectrum of her interests ranges from music of the Middle Ages to the present day, with a special focus on the music of the 18th and 19th century. She is a Chopin researcher closely associated with the National Chopin Institute in Warsaw since 2007. The list of her publications includes over 50 scientific works, i.a. a book, Fontana and Chopin in Letters (Warsaw 2009; Eng. translation 2013). She is an author of Chopin projects, including a spectacle Julian Fontana – in Chopin’s Shadow, staged in Warsaw, Hamburg and Paris. She regularly gives lectures at international conferences and writes scientific expertises and reviews. She has been a member of the Musicological Section of the Association of Polish Composers (ZKP) since 2012.

She graduated in musicology from the University of Warsaw (2005), awarded in Lissa Competition for her MA thesis on Organ Concertos by J.S. Bach, organ studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg (2010), receiving both concert and pedagogical diploma in the class of Prof. Wolfgang Zerer as well as Specialized MA at the Department of Historical Keyboard Instruments at the Hochschule für Alte Musik in Basel (2011), expanding her skills with respect to historical performance practice, improvisation, ensemble playing, basso continuo and conducting. She received her Ph.D. in Musicology summa cum laude from the Université de Genève and the University of Warsaw (co-tutelle de thèse, 2019) for the monograph on the life and work of Julian Fontana, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and in the Feicht Competition. Among her professeurs were i.a. Lorenzo Ghielmi (organ), Andrea Marcon (maestro al cembalo), Menno van Delft (harpsichord), Rudolf Lutz (improvisation), and Andrzej Banasiewicz (conducting). She has actively participated in the numerous master classes at the historic instruments in Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Austria and Spain. She has been granted many scholarships, among others, the Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS), Société Académique de Genève, Oskar und Vera Ritter Stiftung Hamburg, and Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland.

In her research into the 19th century, the sociology of music, contextual, intertextual, and interdisciplinary studies occupy a special place. She has studied in depth the problems of the reception and impact history, the phenomenon of virtuosity, the changes of the musical language in the 19th century, the penetration of the language of opera into instrumental music, the dance music and its sociological function, the links between musical notation and improvisation in the 18th and 19th centuries, the problem of notes inégales and rubato, as well as the historically informed performance practice.

Frédéric Chopin takes an important place in her research. She has conducted thoroughgoing studies on the composer's biography and supplemented its many areas. She has dealt with the closest friend, student, copyist and publisher of Chopin’s Oeuvres Posthumes, Julian Fontana, the problem of Chopin’s reception in the 19th century, editions and sources of his works, the mutual musical influence of Chopin and the artists of the era, Chopin's inspirations with the opera, and conducted her in-depth and multifaced study on his letters.

As a concert musician she performs regularly as a soloist, conductor and chamber musician, i.a. with the early music ensemble she founded, Le Jardin d’Eden. Her repertoire covers music from the Middle Ages to the present day. She takes part in the first performances of contemporary music. A special area of her activity is historical performance practice and Basso continuo. Since 2012 she has been the titular organist at the St. John’s Reformed Church in Bern. Since 2012 she has been a member of the Swiss Music Pedagogic Association (SMPV).