She is a harpist born Barbara Pniewska in Poland to a family where her father was a violist who performed with several of the top Warsaw orchestra and quartets. She started playing the piano when she was six years old. She switched from the piano to the harp when she was at high school and later went on to graduate cum laude from the Warsaw Academy of Music.
She was invited by the Polish Ministry of Culture to take part in the Harp Contest going ahead in Geneva and it was there that the harpist Aristid von Wurtzler as her to study a the Hartt College of Music at the University of Hartford in the Unites States. She accepted his invitation and became an assistant teacher after graduating cum laude. It was around this time she and Aristid von Wurtzler were married.
With her husband she was a co-founder of the New York Harp Ensemble. Although initially continuing to teach she gave it up due to the demands of performing with the ensemble and the busy life of touring all over the United States and internationally to at least 53 other countries.
With the ensemble she performed on 26 LPs and at least 6 CDs and given performances at the White House to four different Presidents, at the Bogota presidential palace and at the Vatican City to Pope John Paul II.
A small selection of the recordings she appeared on with the NYHE include A Pastoral Christmas, Eva Marton, An Evening with the New York Harp Ensemble, Contemporary Music for Harp Ensemble, Musical Memories Volume 2 and The Romantic Harp along with many others.
After her husband died the New York Harp Ensemble was disbanded in 1997.
Sources:
- https://harppost.blogspot.com/2011/04/interview-with-barbara-von-wurtzler.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Harp_Ensemble
- https://www.proquest.com/openview/f1477343574cd570f7439a8a15c53ad3/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=105662
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristid_von_W%C3%BCrtzler
- https://www.swansonharp.com/traveling-with-the-new-york-harp-ensemble
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/3611166-Barbara-Pniewska