BOJANOWSKI, JERZY (June 18, 1893 -- Sept. 10, 1983)Conductor and composer. Jerzy Bojanowski, who came to the United States on March 17, 1932, and lifted Polish choral groups in the United States to unprecedented heights, was almost but not quite born in Poland. It was he who furnished the names of his parents and place of birth. The names of his parents, Kamil Adam Wincenty and Wladyslawa Teresa (Bujalska) Bojanowski, were found in Who's Who in Chicago and Illinois (8th edition). Jerzy, who would not change his first name to George in the United States, was born and spent his childhood in the village of Kamienskoje between two seas in southern Europe. Just before he was born, his father, an engineer for a steel company, was transferred there from Warsaw, according to We, the Milwaukee Poles. No more is known of his parents.
Jerzy Bojanowski received his musical education in Warsaw and Vienna from 1907 to 1914 and then, because it would keep him briefly out of military service, he studied law for two years at Kharkov University, one of the major universities in Ukraine. The two-year stint in the army followed.
One may not know much about his musical career, for the full story, except for the places in Poland where he was a musical director, is not yet written. His contributions to the musical history of Warsaw, 1918-19; Poznan, 1919-25; Torun, 1925-27; Lwow, 1927-29, were not soon forgotten. Nor his tours of European cities with the finest opera company in Poland. It was while he was a musical director of Warsaw's Teatr Wielki that music lovers from the United States, many of whom were born in Poland and missed Polish operas, first became familiar with his performances.
Nothing changed Bojanowski's life more than the role the Polish government expected him to fill in the United States. There were so many voices in the air that nobody exactly knew who came up with the idea of putting together the best of the Polish choirs in Chicago and performing under the direction of Alexander Kaczynski, a well known church organist, during the 1933-34 world's fair. On its face, the most active voices were the officers of the Polish Singers Alliance of America and Tytus Zbyszewski, who came to Chicago in February, 1931, to take over the Polish consulate. For the second time in their history, the Polish people of Chicago were ready to strut like peacocks for an international audience.
Shortly after his arrival in Chicago, Zbszewski, a 45-year old diplomat who lacked confidence in the church organists he found in the Polish churches of Chicago, asked Tytus Filipowicz, the Polish ambassador in the United States, to send an instructor from Poland to work with the Polish choirs in Chicago. As a result the Polish government sent Bojanowski to Chicago as an instructor of song for the Polish choirs.
Although fifteen years old, the ship he boarded in Gdynia, Poland, renamed Kosciuszko in 1930 (the first one to bear the name of Thaddeus Kosciuszko), sailed to New York a few times without a Polish banner. In checking her manifest, March 17, 1932, it listed Bojanowski's occupation as "courrier" (sic) of the Polish government. Omitted was musical director of the Polish National Theater in Warsaw.
Exactly how long he drew pay from Poland has not been found. When he was naturalized at Chicago, December 10, 1941, three days after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, he said nothing about it. He probably remained a Polish diplomat until that time, for on November 16, 1938, when he crossed the Canadian border with his wife, Frances Krenz (Welzant), whom he married September 11, 1937, at Lincoln, Nebraska, he was an official of the Polish government, and on April 23, 1939, when he returned from Poland, he listed himself as a Polish government official on the manifest of the SS President Roosevelt. At the same time William Seabrook, who visited the Polish consulate in Chicago, wrote in These Foreigners that the Polish government asked Bojanowski "to remain in America as an attache of the consulate."
Wherever he is mentioned, more attention is paid to Bojanowski's concerts than anything else. Almost forgotten is his connection with the Chicago exposition in 1933-34. From the time Zbszewski and Filipowicz were recalled to Warsaw in 1932 the Polish singing societies lost interest in a singing festival. Why? First, they couldn't raise the money for a large production. Secondly, in the Polish community, on account of the mayor's political machine, many believed that the politicos took the dream of the Polish choral groups and passed it on to the plethora of nationalities. As it turned out, the United Slavic Choral Societies, a new group, held the first singing festival on December 9, 1934, at the Chicago Civic Opera House. Bojanowski was lost in the shuffle. The group printed his short essay on Polish music.
Bojanowski left an imprint on every old Polish singing society in Chicago. No one knows exactly how many groups of individuals began to sing Polish songs together under his direction. Few, if any, have minutes of their sessions. Some societies have a long track record. No records exist of his songs that they sung. After decades in obscurity, the collection of Jerzy Bojanowski was found at the Mills Music Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin It includes newspaper clippings and programs of his concerts from 1925 to the 1960s, letters that he wrote and received from other musicians, and other papers. Kirstin M. Dougan catalogued the material in 2001. The compositions and songs that Bojanowski sent to the Library of Congress also caught the eye of the Milwaukee librarian and she listed them on her website.
"From his correspondence," she wrote, "we know that he entered his orchestra piece Indian Sketches in a composition contest at Juilliard in 1943. He did not win, but Vincent Persichetti's "Dance Overture" and Herbert Elwell's "Introduction and Allegro" did.
Bojanowski's correspondence also reveals that he often sent his manuscripts to soloists for consideration, especially if they were performing with his orchestras. Some soloists declined, stating that the pieces were too difficult."
Bojanowski was prompted to move to Milwaukee in 1941 by the Music under the Stars concerts in the Blatz Temple of Music. It all began in 1938 when Emil Blatz, who started to work in his father's brewery in 1877, when he was 14 years old, donated $100,000 to the Milwaukee County Park Commission to build a bandshell and amphitheater in a beautiful park. During the next two decades, some of the nation's leading singers and instrumental groups performed there. Until he died in 1944, Blatz, who often attended the concerts, and Bojanowski, who led the symphony orchestra, were warm friends.
After years of cooperation with the Polish community, the daily newspaper of Milwaukee, or its music critic, brought about two factions in the city and, without being objective, blamed Bojanowski for the calibre of the orchestra under the stars. In 1949, while the attendance was falling, the Milwaukee County Park Commission renewed his contact, 4-3, and three years later replaced him. With the number of music lovers growing smaller in the years to come, everybody realized that Milwaukee lacked enough good musicians.
No sketch of Bojanowski would be complete without mention of the American premiere of Halka by Moniuszko at Marquette University. Bojanowski conducted it in Milwaukee and Chicago. His efforts to form another first-class orchestra - never succeeded. He died in Milwaukee of a heart attack.
Author: Edward Pinkowski (2012) [email protected]