our projects

Only two days before the National Independence Day, on 9 November 2019, the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon will host a concert organised by the Polish Composers' Union in cooperation with the centre for creation, development and promotion of contemporary music Miso Music Portugal, celebrating the centenary of the recognition of Polish independence by Portugal.

2019 marks the hundredth anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between Poland and countries around the world. On this occasion the Polish Composers’ Union with its partners abroad organises concerts of Polish music as part of the project "With Polish Music from the Baltic to the Atlantic". In July works by Polish composers were performed during the Glasperlenspiel Music Festival 2019 in Tallinn; in November Polish compositions will be presented in the capital of Portugal.

The Portuguese edition of the project will feature a chamber ensemble specialising in contemporary music – Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble under the direction of Pedro Neves. The concert will take place at the O'culto da Ajuda art music centre, a venue run by Miso Music Portugal since 2014, dedicated to experimentation in the field of music and its relation to other arts. We will listen to Midsummer (1979) for clarinet, piano, cello and electronics by Włodzimierz Kotoński – the father of Polish electronic music. The composition, which is a part of the cycle dedicated to the four seasons, was premiered in Poland in 1980 during the "Warsaw Autumn" festival. The programme will also include -onym (2011) by Wojtek Blecharz – the composer's first work for live electronics, Grocery Store Music # 5 (2018) by Piotr Peszat – premiered last year by the Hashtag Ensemble during the "Independent Polish Music" conference, and PRIMORDIUM: Encephalon by Karol Nepelski – the second in a planned cycle of several works devoted to the quest for various form of primordiality and origins in music. The evening will end with the world premiere of the work commissioned by the Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble – Open Enclosure for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and electronics by the Portuguese composer João Madureira.

The project "With Polish music from the Baltic to the Atlantic" is realized by the Polish Composers’ Union as part of the "Promotion of Polish culture abroad" programme. The events are co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund.

SEE: Facebook Event

Polish Composers' Union and Grand Thetre – Polish National Opera, the organizers of the International Stanisław Moniuszko Composers’ Competition for a Micro-Opera Entitled "12 Minutes for Moniuszko", invite you to the Evening of Premieres. The event,  during which the winners of the Competition will be announcedon, will take place on 18 December 2019 at 7 p.m. in the Emil Młynarski Chamber Hall.

On 31 August 2019, the Jury of the Competition composed of: Krzysztof Penderecki – honorary chairman of the Jury, Waldemar Dąbrowski – director of the Grand Theatre – National Opera, Zygmunt Krauze -– composer, chairman of the jury, Ryszard Daniel Golianek – musicologist, Jerzy Kornowicz – composer, Hanna Kulenty – composer, Janusz Wiśniewski – opera director, Jerzy Wołosiuk – conductor, decided to qualify the following works the second stage of the Competition: Poczekalnia – Hipokrates emblem (Ignacy Zalewski); 2001 – POPPEA emblem (Patricia Elizabeth Martínez); Maska – 211289 emblem (Otto Wanke); Imigrant – czado2001 emblem (Tomasz Szczepanik); Szumią, 36o – ilriverso8o emblem (Paweł Siek); Klon – oksuinom-klon emblem (Estera Wityńska).

The Evening of Premieres will feature public performance of the works qualified for the second stage, followed by the results announcement and awarding ceremony. The winner of the Competition will receive a main prize of PLN 40,000 and the title of the winner of the Competition. The other finalists will receive prizes in the amount of PLN 20,000 and titles of the laureate of the Competition. The audience of the Grand Theatre – National Opera will award the additional prize in the amount of PLN 10,000 together with the title of the winner of the audience award.

More information at: https://teatrwielki.pl/repertuar/kalendarium/2019-2020/12-minut-dla-moniuszki-wieczor-prawykonan/termin/2019-12-18_19-00/ 

The winners of the International Stanisław Moniuszko Composers’ Competition for a micro-opera entitled “12 Minutes for Moniuszko”, organized by the Polish Composers' Union and Grand Theatre – Polish National Opera, were announced during the Evening of Premieres, which was held on 18 December 2019 at 7 p.m. in the Emil Młynarski Chamber Hall of the Grand Theater – Polish National Opera.

The competition aimed to revive, in present-day conditions, the specific idea of Moniuszko’s operas as musical dramas based on social topics. After the auditions of the 2nd stage of the Competition, the Jury composed of: Zygmunt Krauze – composer, chairman of the Jury, Waldemar Dąbrowski – director of the Grand Theater – National Opera, Ryszard Daniel Golianek – musicologist, Jerzy Kornowicz – composer, Hanna Kulenty – composer, Janusz Wiśniewski – opera director, Jerzy Wołosiuk – conductor, awarded the main prize of PLN 40,000 to Tomasz Szczepanik, PhD, for the work The Immigrant. The winner of the Competition is a lecturer at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź.

Other finalists – Ignacy Zalewski, Patricia Elizabeth Martínez, Otto Wanke, Paweł Siek and Estera Wityńska – received prizes in the amount of PLN 20,000 and titles of the laureates of the Competition. The Audience Award in the amount of PLN 10,000 was awarded to Ignacy Zalewski, PhD, assistant professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music.

We warmly congratulate all the winners!

150 compositions performed at the International Festival of Contemporary Music "Warsaw Autumn" and digital copies of 400 photographs from the festival archive are available on www.polmic.pl as part of the "Warsaw Autumn Available!" project.

In the last years, the Polish Music Information Center POLMIC has been implementing a programme of complex archivisation, digitalisation and sharing collections of recordings and photos related to the "Warsaw Autumn" International Festival of Contemporary Music – the most important contemporary music festival in Poland and one of the most important events of this type in Europe and in the world. Photographs and recording documenting the festival over the past 60 years of its existence are a true national heritage, reflecting the history of Polish musical culture in this period, immortalizing its creators and presenting their most important works. The aim of our activities is to protect archival materials from inevitable degradation and to provide access to these materials to a wide audience, through the polmic.pl and muzar.polmic.pl websites, as well as through the monographic portals of selected composers.

In 2019 we digitalised a unique and priceless collection of recodings and photographs. Photographs available in the online gallery are primarily documentation of festival concerts and accompanying events from the years 1977-1980 in the lens of Jan Hausbrandt and Andrzej Glanda – photographers who collaborated with the "Warsaw Autumn" for many years. Fragments of compositions performed at the festival in the years 1956-1962 and made available in a digital version are an encouragement for all interested to visit the Library of the Polish Composers' Union (27 Old Town Market Square, 00-272 Warsaw), where it is possible to listen to the entire works!

The project was co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund.

SEE: Photographs from the "Warsaw Autumn" 1977–1980; Recordings from the "Warsaw Autumn" 1956–1962 (available soon!)

The 16th volume of the "Musicology Today" – a double-blind peer reviewed journal published by the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw and the Polish Composer’s Union, has been published. It is entirely devoted to Polish women composers.

“The present volume of “Musicology Today” contributes, on the one hand, to the global trend of ‘feminist musicology’, while on the other it provides us with a unique opportunity to present some outstanding but not always sufficiently well-known Polish women-composers. The seven papers published in the present volume include the profiles of women-composers spanning the period of nearly three centuries, from Maria Antonia Walpurgis (1724-1780) to Justyna Kowalska-Lasoń (b. 1985), a talented Polish composer of the youngest generation.” – wrote Sławomira Żerańska-Kominek in the editorial.

The main objective of „Musicology Today” is to provide an intellectual platform for international scholars and to promote interdisciplinary studies in musicology. The journal publish articles in the fields of historical musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, and other sub-disciplines of musicology. It distinctly promotes studies on Central and Eastern European music and aims to become a leading musicological journal in this part of the world.

The publication has been financed from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education allocated for the promotion and dissemination of science under agreement 730/P-DUN/2019.

All the articles are available online at: https://content.sciendo.com/muso