Halina Czerny-Stefanska, a Polish pianist, won the first prize IV Frederick Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1949. Her father and her mother were pianists. Her father, Stanisław Schwarzenberg-Czerny, studied with Jerzy Lalewicz and Egon Petrieg. Her mother studied with Egon Petrieg. She began to study piano at age five. At the age of seven, she gave her first public recital on the Krakow transmission of Polish Radio. In 1934, she entered the Competition for Young Talents in Warsaw, where she was awarded the Alfred Cortot prize. The award inclded stipends to study with Cortot in Paris. After she returned to Poland, she worked with Prof. Jozef Turczynski at Warsaw Conservatory until World War II. In 1938, she moved to Krakow where she performed occasionally.