Tomasz Nowak, D.Litt., graduated with a master’s degree from the Institute of Musicology of the University of Warsaw before earning his Ph.D. at the Faculty of History of the University of Warsaw and receiving an MBA degree in Management for Creators, Artists, and Animators of Culture at the Faculty of Management of the University of Warsaw.
Nowak is an alumnus of the Warszawianka Song and Dance Ensemble affiliated with the University of Warsaw. In 1999, he completed an Instructor Qualification Course, majoring in folk dance, and in 2004-2005 he perfected his choreological skills at the Institute of Choreology in Poznań under Roderyk Lange. He currently heads the Department of Systematic and Cultural Musicology at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Warsaw (since 2020) and is a guest dance lecturer at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw (since 2003). He has also taught at the College of Arts and Sciences in Kielce, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Academy of Humanities and Economics in Łódź, Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, and the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Nowak is a member of the Polish Choreological Forum (of which he is also a co-founder), serving as its vice-president (2011-2014) and president (2014-2017, 2020-2022). He is also affiliated with the Polish Composers’ Union, where he served as secretary general between 2015 and 2017; the International Council for Traditional Music; the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology; the Polish Seminar in Ethnomusicology (initiator; president from 2012 through 2016; vice-president from 2016 to 2019)l and an expert of the Polish Section of the Conseil International des Organisations de Festivals de Folklore et d’Art Traditionnels.
He is the author and editor of several books on music and dance, including Tradycje muzyczne społeczności polskiej na Wileńszczyźnie. Opinie i zachowania, Warszawa 2005; Folk Dances Now and Then in the Light of Polish and Norwegian Experience. Tradycyjny taniec ludowy dawniej i dziś w świetle doświadczeń polskich i norweskich, Kielce 2011; Tradycyjna kultura taneczna Wileńszczyzny do 1939 roku, Straduny 2014; Taniec narodowy w polskim kanonie kultury. Źródła, geneza, przemiany, Warszawa 2016; [together with Piotr Dahlig] Podlasie. Cz. 5, Muzyka instrumentalna i taniec, Warszawa 2021 [Polska pieśń i muzyka ludowa. Źródła i materiały. Tom 5, Podlasie], as well as more than eighty articles and chapters in peer-reviewed titles.
Tomasz Nowak is a recipient of the Award for the Best Dissertation on the History of Polish Music (2016), the “CLIO” Award (2006, 2017) and the Rev. Prof. Hieronim Feicht Award (2007).
