Krzysztof Penderecki

Born in Debica, Poland on 23 November 1933, he studied at the State Academy of Music in Krakow and came to international attention in 1960 with Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, scored for 52 string instruments and deploying tone clusters, glissandi, and percussive bowing to push the orchestra toward noise. He later shifted toward a neo-Romantic idiom in works including the St Luke Passion and Polish Requiem. He received four Grammy Awards, the Wolf Prize in Arts in 1987, and the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1992. He died in Krakow on 29 March 2020.