Born in Warsaw in 1954, he studied the double bass (with Alfred Wieczorek and Andrzej Mysiński) and composition (with Włodzimierz Kotoński) at the Music Academy in Warsaw. Thanks to a Witold Lutosławski grant, he continued his compositional studies abroad, with Isang Yun in West Berlin and Klaus Huber in Freiburg (1986–87). As a double bass player he focuses on the contemporary solo repertoire. He has performed in many European countries, Asia and the United States.
He is also active as an improviser, playing with musical ensembles such as Mud Cavaliers and Laterna.
In 1999 his Concerto à rebours for violin and orchestra (1998) was commended at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in Paris.
He is also active in the field of promoting contemporary music and arts education. He ran several cycles of radio programmes introducing children into the world of new music and cooperated with the Children’s Arts Centre in Poznań and the Okopowa Cultural Centre. He was Artistic Director of World Music Days in Warsaw in 1992. In 2004 he was invited as a lecturer to the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music.
His works have been commissioned by institutions, festivals and ensembles such as Warsaw Autumn, Polish Radio, Poznań Philharmonic, de ereprijs, the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, Klangspuren in Schwaz, Klangforum Wien, Hiroshima Symphony Association, and others.
In April 2012 at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, his new work A thread is woven …IV for double bass and ensemble received its first performance with the composer as soloist; the Plural Ensemble was conducted by Zsolt Nagy.
He has served as Director of the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music since 1999 until 2016.