Paulina Derska

Composer, percussionist, and organist, specializing in film and concert music.

A graduate of the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław (with distinction, 2022), she is a laureate of numerous international composition competitions and film festivals.

Her greatest recognition came with the score for the film “Tama” (dir. Giovanni Pierangeli), which was included on the longlist for the BAFTA Student Awards 2024 – as one of only twenty titles selected worldwide. The film featuring her music was also presented at EnergaCAMERIMAGE, the Youth and Film Festival in Koszalin, FEST New Directors / New Films Festival in Portugal, as well as at Cannes 2025. Earlier, she composed the score for the award-winning “My Secret Cyberlove” (dir. Bartosz Stankiewicz), recognized at festivals such as Short Waves, Żubroffka, and Octopus, and also presented in Gdynia, Warsaw, Brussels, and at the New Horizons Festival.

Her film work also includes “Karesansui” (dir. Sophie Safinowska), which received an award at the Cyprus Film Festival Youth.

As a concert music composer, she has won 1st Prize in the Orchestral Category at the World Cup in Composition (Vienna, 2020), the Audience Award at the Indie Film Music Competition (2020), and was several times a finalist of the international Young Talent Award. In 2020, she took part in the prestigious composition residency led by Agata Zubel-Moc in Iceland. Since 2023, she has led her own ensemble, Quinteto Sureño, specializing in Spanish-language music, with which she has performed over twenty concerts across Poland – including at Oratorium Marianum and Aula Leopoldinum.

Scroll to Top