Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Marta Mirska
Summary
Marta Mirska, (born Alicja Nowak February 12, 1918 in Warsaw – November 15, 1991), was a Polish singer active from 1940 to the mid-1960s. Her distinctive alto voice brought her to popular attention immediately before World War II. Her popularity peaked in the 1950s, with recordings on the Poznań-based Mewa and then the Polskie Nagrania labels. Her best-known song was Pierwszy siwy włos (First Gray Hair), a nostalgic tango written by Kazimierz Winkler and Henryk Hubertus Jabłoński originally for singer Mieczysław Fogg.
While still in Warsaw immediately before the outbreak of World War II, she became involved with the Ali Baba Theatre, established by the entertainer Kazimierz Krukowski. Wartime found her working as a courier in the underground Polish Armia Krajowa in the east of Poland. Under her cover name 'Marta', she entered and won a talent contest in Vilnius in 1940, after which she sang in the city at the popular nightclub Sztralla Artystów, as well as engagements in 1940-1941 with the orchestra of Ludwik Sempolinski and entertainer Janusz Minkiewicz's satirical cabaret "Ksantyp".
After the war, she settled in Lódź and began a long collaboration with the Lopatowski Brothers Orchestra that resulted in a string of recordings including the hits Czy pamiętasz tę noc w Zakopanem? (Do You Remember That Night In Zakopane?) and Wspominalam ten dzień (I Remembered That Day).
As her popularity grew, in 1950 Mirska received an invitation from Warsaw to work with the well-known Polish Radio Dance Orchestra. She accepted the offer, which gave her access to material created by the most talented and popular composers and songwriters of the day. Her plaintive and heart-felt interpretation of Pierwszy siwy włos (First Gray Hair) became a great radio hit in 1956, and became the most requested song at her concerts for the rest of her career. It was re-recorded in 1972 for release in an album (Polskie Nagrania XL 0833) of 12 selections drawn from her extensive repertoire. The song was also recorded in Czech after gaining regional popularity in Bratislava.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.