Wanda Wilkomirska was a Polish violinist, composer, and music educator, born in Warsaw on January 11, 1929. She began studying music with her father, violinist Alfred Wilkomirski, and graduated from the Higher School of Music in Łódź in 1947, where she studied with Irena Dubiska. As a student, she played second violin in the Szymanowski Quartet, founded by Dubiska.
Wilkomirska continued her studies with Ede Zathureczky at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, and with Tadeusz Wroński and Eugenia Umińska in Warsaw and Henryk Szeryng in Paris. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she placed highly in international competitions, including winning second prize at the 1952 Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition. From 1959 she was a soloist with the Warsaw Philharmonic, and from 1961 she toured widely in Europe and the Americas. She also performed with the Wilkomirski family trio alongside her brother Kazimierz and sister Maria.
She played chamber music with musicians including Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, and Daniel Barenboim. Her tours took her to more than 50 countries, and she appeared with symphony orchestras under conductors including Otto Klemperer, Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Pierre Boulez, Zubin Mehta, and Carlo Giulini. She gave the first performances of works by Polish composers including Krzysztof Penderecki and Tadeusz Baird.
Wilkomirska taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts Mannheim from 1983 to 2018, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 1999 to 2018, and the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne from 2001 to 2018. She died in Warsaw on May 1, 2018.