Marta Ptaszynska is the author of many well-known and widely performed works such as Concerto for Marimba, Winter’s Tale, Moon Flowers,Liquid Light and numerous compositions for percussion such as Siderals, Graffito, Spider Walk, Space Model,Mobile, Scintilla, etc.
She received commissions from major symphony orchestras such as Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, Polish Chamber Orchestra and Sinfonia Varsovia, as well as from outstanding chamber music groups and soloists, such as Ewa Podles, Keiko Abe, Evelyn Glennie, Pacifica String Quartet, and Eighth Blackbird Ensemble. Her TV opera Oscar of Alva, produced by the Cracow Television in 1988, received the high applause of the audience and music critics at the International Festival of Television Operas in Salzburg (1989). The children opera Mister Marimba, which was in the repertory of the National Opera in Warsaw since 1998 for eight consecutive seasons, has enjoyed phenomenal success and popularity with 154 sold-out performances.
Over the years she was honored with many prizes and awards which include, among others, Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York in 2006, the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, John Simon Guggenheim Award, and many Composition Awards, Alfred Jurzykowski Award in New York in 1997 , ASCAP Awards, First Prize at UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in Paris, several awards of the Percussive Arts Society. In 1995, she received the “Officer Cross of Merit” of the Republic of Poland.
For many years she has taught composition in American universities and music schools such as University of California in Berkeley and in Santa Barbara, Bennington College, Indiana University in Bloomington, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University . Since 1998 she has been a professor of composition at the University of Chicago and holds the endowed chair of Helen B.& Frank L.Sulzberger Professor in Composition.

Ptaszynska graduated with Master Degrees from the Academy of Music in Warsaw, where she studied music theory and composition under Tadeusz Paciorkiewicz, and from the Poznan Academy of Music, where she studied percussion under Jerzy Zgodzinski. As a French Government scholar, she studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and in 1974 she received the Artist Diploma Degree (ADD) in composition and percussion performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland , USA.
In her wide catalog of works, the vocal and instrumental music such as opera, oratorio and cantata attract special attention. Being herself a percussionist, she creates music full of colors and vitality, music with mesmerizing sonorous sound textures.
Her music is published by PWM ( Polish Music Publications) in Poland and by Theodore Presser Co. in USA, and is recorded on CD Accord, Muza Polish Records, Olympia, Chandos, Dux, Bayer Records, and Pro Viva.