Pinkowski Files

Budarz, Camille Antoinette
(June 10, 1935 -- December 21, 2005)
Distinguished Chopin virtuoso, teacher

Born in Pittsburgh (PA), U.S.; daughter of John and Antoinette (Los); married David Kornreich; children: Geremy, Christopher.

Education: Bachelor of Science (B.S.) (in piano), Juilliard School of Music, New York City, 1957.

Career: piano teacher, Riverdale School (NY), 1962-69, Juilliard School of Music, 1964-65; concert pianist, numerous recitals in United States, Japan, France, Poland.

Author: Chopin Waltzes, and American Music of the 1970's (record), 1985.

Member of: Juilliard Alumni Association; American Council of Polish Culture (A.C.P.C.); Kosciuszko Foundation; League of Women Voters; Polish American Congress (P.A.C.).

Honors: Paderewski Award, Kosciuszko Foundation, 1959

Languages: English, Polish, French, Italian, Spanish

Hobbies: travel, reading, cooking

Home: 251 Croton Dam Rd., Ossining, NY 10562

From: "Who's Who in Polish America" 1st Edition 1996-1997, Boleslaw Wierzbianski editor; Bicentennial Publishing Corporation, New York, NY, 1996
Editor's Note: Camille Budarz's father, John M. Budarz, who was a member of St. Scholastica R. C. Church, Aspinwall, near Pittsburgh, died October 24, 1994, at Fox Chapel. His wife, Antoinette M. (nee Los), with whom he had three daughters, an active member of the Polish Arts League of Pittsburgh, moved to live with her daughter, Wendy B. Cairns, at Port Charlotte, Florida, where she died November 10, 2006. Camille A. Komreich, as the pianist was known in private life, probably died on her way to visit her mother, then 95 years old, and her sister for Christmas in 2005.
Edward Pinkowski, 2008

Camille Antoinette Budarz

Camille Antoinette Budarz is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, where she was a scholarship student of Joseph Raieff. She has also studied with Maria Carreras, Rudolf Firkusny, David Bar-Illan and Jan Gorbaty in New York, and was the first American to study with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli in Italy.
Ms. Budarz has taught at Juilliard and at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana, where she was Visiting Scholar and Artist-In-Residence. She has served on numerous juries including the Chopin Foundation Council of Greater New York and for the Manhattan School of Music's special Chopin Prize. Her CD of Chopin works includes many of the Waltzes, the Fantaisie in F minor and the Concerto #1 in E minor.
A charter member of the Juilliard chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon, the national honorary music fraternity, she was national co-chair for music of the American Council for Polish Culture, from which she had received a lifetime cultural achievement award in 1993. Other honors include listings in American Keyboard Artists, a N.Y. State Assembly Citation, and a Certificate of Appreciation from the Westchester County Board of Legislators for her service as President of the Briarcliff, Ossining, Croton and Cortlandt Chapter of the League of Women Voters.
She has had a very active concert career, with performances in Europe, Japan and throughout the USA. In October, 1999 she was part of a Chopin gala at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. In March of 2000, following recitals in Philadelphia and New York's Kosciuszko Foundation, she took a leave of absence for treatment of breast cancer, for which she is currently again under treatment. She returned to concertizing in March of 2001 with a benefit for the League of Women Voters. She has since performed at the Polish Consulate in New York City, in an International Bach Festival in Poland, at the Marcella Sembrich Opera Museum in upstate N. Y. and in her native Pittsburgh as part of Steinway's nationwide celebration of its 150th anniversary. (At this concert she performed on Vladimir Horowitz's incomparable piano, another that belonged to her Juilliard classmate Van Cliburn and played the Gershwin works heard today on a newly created Gershwin commemorative piano -- it is blue and the "desk" features the outline of the Manhattan skyline).
Camille is very pleased to perform today as a tribute to Nancy Bassett, a longtime and highly valued member of the League of Women Voters.
She was a Steinway Artist.
Her CD commemorating the 150th anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin's death is available through various music sellers.

Obituary from: NEW YORK TIMES, Jan. 5, 2006