Photog. Marta Rybicka & Sławek Kamiński, c/o Sinfonia Varsovia
Zuzanna Elster
ZUZANNA ELSTER – soloist, chamber, and orchestra harpist, pedagogue. She graduated from Prof. Urszula Mazurek’s class of Warsaw’s Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music, (2008, honours diploma) and completed post-graduate studies in the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin where she learned under Prof. Maria Graf (2011, cum laude diploma).
In 2012, she received a Doctoral Degree in Musical Arts, and a habilitation in 2017.
The artist has refined her skills at master courses led by E. Bennett, J. Bouskova, S. Kanga, M. Graf, G. Lorenzini, S. McDonald, C. Michel, N. Shamayeva, and H. Storck. She has also taken harp lessons with Germaine Lorenzini in Lyon.
A laureate of national and international harp competitions, Zuzanna Elster has received two scholarships from the Minister of Culture, and the Magna cum Laude medal.
She also performed on Paweł Gusnar’s CD, Saxophone Varie, which received the Fryderyk Award in 2014 in the Chamber Music Album of the Year category, and on Joanna Freszel’s album Real Life Song, which received the Orphée d’Or award in 2016 in the Meuilleure Interprète de Musique Lyrique Contemporaine category. Together with the flutist Agata Igras, the artist recorded a CD, Sonatas for Flute and Harp (2019).
Zuzanna Elster is a judge at Polish and international harp competitions and regularly leads master courses. She was the only Polish pedagogue to conduct classes at The Orchestra of the Americas programme in The Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music in Lusławice in 2018.
The harpist has widely performed across Europe and Asia. She appeared as a soloist with the orchestras: Sinfonia Varsovia, Brandenburger Symphoniker, Tokyo Prime Symphony Orchestra, St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra, the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestras of Lublin, Szczecin, Słupsk, and Opole Philharmonics. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has recorded for the Polish Radio and Television.
Currently, Zuzanna Elster teaches in the harp class of the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, where she holds the position of associate professor. Since 2022, she is the Head of its Chair of Harp, Guitar and Percussion.
