MIECZYSŁAW KARŁOWICZ was a Polish composer and conductor. Apart from that, he was a passionate mountaineer and one of the pioneers of skiing, art photographer and publicist. Mieczysław Karłowicz was born in Wiszniewo, in the Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Smarhon District in the Grodno Region of Belarus) His father was a linguist, lexicographer and musician. In 1882, his family moved to Heidelberg, Prague and Dresden, and from 1887 settled in Warsaw. As a child he played the violin, studied harmony and counterpoint. Karłowicz received his music training in Warsaw and later in Berlin with Heinrich Urban, to whom he dedicated his Serenade for Strings, composed and performed while he was his student. In 1906 to 1907, he studied conducting with Arthur Nikisch in Leipzig. At the University of Warsaw he studied natural sciences, and in Berlin – philosophy. In 1903, Karłowicz founded a string orchestra at the Warsaw Music Society named after Stanisław Moniuszko. A member of the Young Poland movement, he had a special affinity for Tchaikovsky’s music and was fascinated with the Belorussian folklore – in Eternal Songs and Lithuanian Rhapsody he makes use of Belorussian folk tunes. In 1889, Karłowicz made his first trip to the Tatras and in 1892 organized his first tourist route in the Western Tatras. In 1907, he moved to live in Zakopane and became a mountaineer. Killed tragically at the age of 32 by an avalanche during a trip. Many of Mieczysław Karłowicz’s manuscripts were destroyed during World War II. He is the author of the Renaissance Symphony, a Violin Concerto, six symphonic poems, a Serenade for String Orchestra, songs for voice and piano, among others.