Joanna Bruzdowicz-Tittel (1943–2021) – composer, pianist and music critic, member of the Polish Composers' Union from 1968 – died at the age of 78 in Taillet (France).
She studied composition with Kazimierz Sikorski and piano with Irena Protasewicz and Wanda Łosakiewicz at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw. She began her career as a pianist; during her studies she travelled to many places in Poland, Belgium, Austria and former Czechoslovakia to give concerts. She was a co-founder and General Secretary (between 1964-68) of the Polish section of “Jeunesses Musicales”. She received a scholarship from the French government, which enabled her to study composition with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Schaeffer and musicology under the supervision of Jacques Chailley at the Sorbonne University in Paris (1968-70).
Promoting Polish music and contemporary music was her passion. She co-founded the Groupe International de Musique Electroacoustique de Paris (GIMEP). In 1983 she established the Fryderyk Chopin Society and the Karol Szymanowski Society. In 1996 she organized the first edition of the International Music Festival in Cerét at the foot of the Pyrenees. In 2006 she initiated the opening of the Perpignan CAT.Studios – a centre for film production and distribution and a film music studio. She composed film music and wrote film scripts together with her husband (e.g. for 36 films produced for the German TV station WDR “Stahlkammer Zurich”).
In 2001 Joanna Bruzdowicz received the Order of Polonia Restituta, in December 2013 – the Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis, and in 2019 – the Honorary Award of the Polish Composers' Union for many years of promoting Polish music and Polish musicians at the Festival International de Musique en Catalogne.