Magdalena Tomsinska

Beckett School Instructor Magdalena Tomsinska.
BMus, MMus
Courses Taught: 
Special Notes: 

Magdalena also teaches lute.

Fees: 
9 weeks of 30 mins. ($253) 45 mins. ($380) 60 mins. ($506)

Magdalena Tomsinska was born in Poland, where she majored in classical guitar at the Nowowiejski Academy of Music inBydgoszczand lute at the Penderecki Academy of Music inKrakow. After receiving her Master of Music she moved toGreecein 1989 and then toCanadain 1992, where she now plays professionally and teaches guitar and lute at the Beckett School of Music inKitchener. Magdalena has performed on renaissance lute, baroque guitar, theorbo and classical guitar with various music groups fromCanadaandPoland, including Tactus Vocal Ensemble, Nota Bene Period Orchestra and Nota Bene Baroque Players, Renaissance Singers, Cardinal Consort, Collegium Vocale Bydgoszcz and Canor Anticus along with soloists such as Stephanie Kramer, Jennifer Enns-Modolo and Daniel Cabena. She is a member of the Toronto Continuo Collective.

In 2014, with financial help from the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund and the city of Gdansk, Magdalena recorded a solo lute CD containing music from the 17th century tablatureDanzig 4022, as an addendum to her musicological work.

In the 2013, with Collegium Vocale Bydgoszcz, she recorded in Poland the CD dedicated to Polish Renaissance poet, Jan Kochanowski, Na fraszki, in 2012, the CD Fine Knacks for Ladies, which contained John Dowland’s music, and in 2010 the CD Chansons, dedicated to French 17th century music. CDs includeMagdalena’s lute solos.

Magdalenawas a member of the early music consort Greensleaves from 1996 - 2010. With this consort she recorded three CD’s, Greensleaves (2000), The Gift of Christmas Past (2005) and Polish Popular music of the XVIIth Century (2009), the latest one being dedicated to Polish 17th century music from the manuscript PL-Kj 10002.     

From 1999 to 2005 she was conductor of the choir at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church. In 2000 and 2002 the choir won first prize at the Festival of Religious Songs in Mississauga. With the choir Magdalenarecorded a CD Blisko jesteś Panie.

Magdalenaalso recorded Polish Christmas Carols in 1996 and Polish children's songs in 1997.

            From 2010 to 2012, Magdalena researched a 17th century lute manuscript from Gdansk. She previewed the results of her research at the International Medieval-Renaissance Musicological Conference in Nottingham, England, in summer 2012. In December 2012 she wrote an article on that subject, which was printed in the Polski rocznik muzykologiczny (Polish Musicological Yearly 2012). In musicological literature it is the world's first comprehensive description of this important source of Polish musical culture, which was considered until the late nineties to be irretrievably lost. For the facsimile edition of this tablature (D-B Danzig 4022), printed inGermany in August 2013 by Tree Edition, she wrote the English version of the article, with an introduction and inventory with concordances.