Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Polish virtuoso pianist, composer, diplomat and politician, the third Prime Minister of Poland.

From his early childhood Paderewski was interested in music. Initially he took piano classes with a private teacher. At the age of 12, in 1872, he went to Warsaw and was admitted to the Warsaw Conservatorium. After graduating in 1878 he was asked to become a tutor of piano classes in his alma mater, which he accepted. In 1881 he went to Berlin to study music composition and in 1884 moved to Vienna, where he made his first public appearance in 1887.

His dazzling performances in Paris in 1889, in London in 1890 and the United States in 1891 made him a star

After 1900 Paderewski seldom appeared in public, becoming better known as a composer, chiefly of pieces for piano. In 1901 his opera Manru was performed at Dresden. He was also active as a social worker and donor. In 1913 Paderewski settled in the USA.

During World War I, when Poland was under German and Austro-Hungarian occupation, Paderewski became an active member of the Polish National Committee in Paris, becoming a spokesman of that organisation.

At the end of the war, when the fate of Greater Poland was still undecided, Paderewski visited Poznań. His public speech on 27 December 1918 started a military uprising against Germany, called the Great Poland Uprising.

In 1919, in the newly independent Poland, Paderewski became the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland. He represented Poland on the Paris Peace Conference and after his term ended became the Polish ambassador to the League of Nations.

In 1922 he retired from political career and returned to occasional concert life.

After the Polish Defence War of 1939 Paderewski returned to public life. In 1940 he became the head of the Polish National Council, a Polish parliament in exile in London. The eighty-year-old artist also restarted his Polish Relief Fund and gave several concerts (most notably in the United States) to gather money for it.