official patronage

On September 9 – October 28, 2018, the presentations of a musical and theatrical miniature Od Moniuszki do Starszych Panów, combined with theater workshops, will take place in the Lublin Province. The organizer of the project is the Lublin Branch of the Association of Polish Artists Musicians.

How do you combine romantic songs and satire from 60 years ago? This question is answered by the music and theater miniature Od Moniuszki do Starszych Panów. The musical layer consists of originally arranged works by Fryderyk Chopin, Stanisław Moniuszko, Mieczysław Karłowicz and Stanisław Niewiadomski as well as songs written by duo Jerzy Wasowski – Jeremi Przybora. The scenario combines humor and sentiment, minimalism and expression, chanson and song. The spectacle is directed by Urszula Lewartowicz, who is also the author of the script. The musical part is supervised by Agnieszka Schulz-Brzyska. After the spectacle, viewers will be able to take part in theater workshops introducing the secrets of stage work.

The project is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund under the "Accessible Culture" programme.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

SEE: Facebook Event.

Meakultura Foundation announced the call for entries for the 4th edition of the Polish Music Critics’ Competition "Kropka". The best authors will receive financial and material rewards. The main co-organizer of the competition and the founder of the Grand Prix of the 4th edition is the Institute of Music and Dance.

"Kropka" is the only competition in Poland that aims is to promote music criticism, support debuting journalists and recognise authors writing about Polish music abroad. The organisers provide the following prizes for the best critics: Grand Prix in the amount of PLN 3000 funded by the Institute of Music and Dance, two Main Awards in the amount of PLN 2,500 funded by the ZAiKS Authors' Association, Special Award for the text about Polish music published outside the country (the founder of the material prize is Adam Mickiewicz Institute), Award for the Debutant (PWM Director-Editor-in-Chief Award), Meakultura Foundation Award for outstanding achievements in the field of music criticism, Special Award of Musicologists' Section of the Polish Composers' Union for people promoting music on radio and television, Special Award of the Fryderyk Chopin National Institute and the Piotr Metz Individual Award for the best text on popular music. The winners will also receive material prizes funded by the competition partners.

Competition Jury is composed of: dr Daniel Cichy (chairman), dr hab. Joanna Maleszyńska, dr Anna Ignatowicz-Glińska (ZAiKS Authors' Association), Agata Kwiecińska, dr hab. Mirosław Pęczak, Rafał Księżyk i Remigiusz Mazur-Hanaj.

Candidates should submit their entries through application form available at www.konkurskropka.pl or via email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Submission deadline: October 15, 2018.

The winners will be announced on November 26, whereas the prize-giving ceremony will be held on December 5.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information on the competition's webstite: http://www.konkurskropka.pl/ 

The 14th International Contemporary Music and Visual Arts Festival "Mózg Festival" will take place in two cities: from September 22 to November 10, 2018 in Bydgoszcz, and from November 21 to 24, 2018 in Warsaw.

The Festival is an encounter of artists who work and create in all areas of contemporary music as well as performance art and multimedia installations where music plays an important part. In the years 2016-2018 each edition of the festival had a motto, which directed the attention to problems emerging in the modern world. The main theme of the 2018 edition is: Spritituality is Everywhere.

In Bydgoszcz, we will hear the improvisation by the Insubora Meta Orchestra, and the festival itself will begin a series of performances by Krzysztof Gruse, Sławek Janicki and Leszek Przyjemski, regarding the message of this year's festival. There will also be a concert of the Ed Wood band and the Scandinavian trio Yes Deer. September's series of events will end with a futuristic audiovisual work Metroscan, in which the images are based on the conversion of current sounds into graphics, and Chemistry of Love – a series of six latest compositions by Marzena Majcher, inspired by the chemical substances responsible for falling in love.

Admission to all festival events with a free invitation, which can be ordered on the Festival website.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Full programme available at: http://festiwal.mozg.pl/bydgoszcz#day-program 

Concerts with music of the most outstanding Polish composers, unusual educational campaigns for the youngest and for musical dessert ... the famous Four Seasons by Vivaldi ‒ these are just some of the attractions prepared for the residents of the Lesser Poland province on September 11-13, 2018 by the Sinfonietta Cracovia Orchestra of the Royal Capital City of Krakow.

In September, one of the best Polish chamber orchestras will visit Bulowice, Dobczyce, Gdów, Łapanów and Kamionna as part of the second edition of the unique tour "My first concert", presenting the works of Polish composers: Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki, Maciej Radziwił, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and Wojciech Kilar. The programme of the concerts will be complement by the fragments of Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi – one of the most famous and most captivating compositions in the history of classical music.

The project features events designed for the whole families, as well as those dedicated to the youngest music lovers – prepared by the irreplaceable Lady Sinfonietka. During the meetings with musicians, participants will have a chance to look behind the scenes, talk to artists and even ... conduct the orchestra!

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

DOWNLOAD: Concerts Schedule

Additional information at: http://sinfonietta.pl/ 

The Autumn edition of the 2018 ORGANy PLUS+ Festival will take place in the Franciscan Holy Trinity church in Gdańsk between September 27 and October 7. This year's edition will celebrate the 400th jubilee of Marten Friese's organ installed at the church.

This year, seventy years after the end of World War II and following fifteen years of persistent efforts and ten years of hard restoration and organ-building works we will have the first occasion to admire the full sound power of the instrument rebuilt at the Franciscan Holy Trinity church in the Old Suburb of Gdańsk to the full. Coincidently, the year 2018 also marks 400 years since this unique instrument was built. The already fourth edition of the ORGANy PLUS+  festival will be an occasion to celebrate and listen to exquisite music played from the musical rood loft, the only one in Poland, reverberating in the Gothic interior untouched for 500 years, its acoustics unattainable anywhere else.

The concerts are also an attempt to revive the specific musical tradition and reality of the old Gdańsk. On Monday, October 1, Ensemble Hildebrandt 1719 conducted by an exquisite organ player of the young generation Krzysztof Urbaniak will present Polish liturgical music of the second half of the seventeenth century under the common title: ‘Between Warsaw and Gdańsk’. We will hear works by Merulo, Różycki, Szarzyński, Siefert, and Neunhaber. The final concert, on Sunday, October 7, will feature Agnieszka Budzińska-Bennett and Schola Cantorum of the Chair of Church Music of the Academy of Music in Gdańsk who will perform liturgical works from the Jan from Lublin Tablature.

And should anyone wish to broaden his/her knowledge and perfect the skills, he/she will have an opportunity to do so during the International Organological Conference "Musica Sacra – Ars Organisandi" and the workshops devoted to playing the organ and the carillon, improvisation, and Gregorian chant.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Full programme available at: www.organyplus.com 

We known the names of the winners of the Karol Szymanowski International Music Competition in Katowice. The final stage in piano and string quartet disciplines has concluded on September 15 and 16, 2018.

In accordance with the decision of the jury, the results of the Final Stage in Piano Category are following: I PRIZE (€ 25 000) Tymoteusz Bies, II PRIZE (€ 18 000) Mateusz Krzyżowski, III PRIZE (€ 10 000) Seung Hui Kim. SPECIAL PRIZE for the best performance of a work by Karol Szymanowski (€ 6 000) Tymoteusz Bies.

Four string quartets took part in the final stage auditions. In accordance with the decision of the jury, the results of Final Stage In String Quartet Category are following: I PRIZE (€ 38 000) Eliot Quartet, II PRIZE (€ 26 000) Selini Quartett, III PRIZE (€ 14 000) New Music Quartet. SPECIAL PRIZE for the best performance of a work by Karol Szymanowski ( € 10 000) went to Eliot Quartet.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information available at: http://szymanowski-competition.com/ 

The new album "Juliusz Łuciuk Choral Works" will be available at DUX Recording Producers shop and in international physical and digital distribution from September 19, 2018.

Juliusz Łuciuk belongs to the group of distinguished Polish composers of the second half of the 20th century. Although today he is associated mainly with various kinds of vocal and vocal-instrumental works, hardly anyone remembers that his artistic output includes also other, purely instrumental works that gained popularity already in the 1960s.

The new album of the Częstochowa Philharmonic Choir, conducted by Janusz Siadlak, contains selected works of the Polish artist, a showpiece of his compositional activity. The album includes short choral compositions (Wild wine from 1958 and Cradle Song from 2017), as well as more complex works (Missa gratiarum actione and St. Mary's Suite).

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

The Polish Orchestra Sinfonia Iuventus invites you to a symphony concert inaugurating the 11th artistic season of the ensemble, which will take place in the concert hall of the National Philharmonic in Warsaw on October 8, 2018 at 7.00 p.m. The programme includes works of Mendelssohn, Moniuszko and Karłowicz.

The greatest solo concertos in musical literature are often the product of the collaboration of a great composer with an outstanding virtuoso – this can also be said of Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, the late masterpiece by Felix Mendelssohn composed for his friend, Ferdinand David. The premiere took place on the 13th of March 1845, and the work was immediately received with enthusiasm by the audience, and from that moment on, it has not departed concert stages, remaining one of the greatest musical hits of all time. The audience of the inaugural concert will hear this masterpiece performed by Krzysztof Jakowicz, one of the most outstanding Polish violinists.

Before the era of the great symphonic poems, whose master was to be Mieczysław Karłowicz, concerto overtures played a similar role in narrative, programmatic forms. Stanisław Moniuszko’s popular Fairy Tale from 1848 is an example of such suggestive music, whose contrasting themes form a fascinating “story” – but we never find out what it is about. The composer left this to the listener’s imagination without betraying any literary programme.

Mieczysław Karłowicz’s Rebirth Symphony corresponds to the Classic-Romantic framework of the four-movement cycle, and its ideological basis is a comprehensive, original programme (published in Słowo Polskie before the Lviv premiere in 1903), in the Young Poland style. It speaks of a “gloomy, malicious singing” and a slow awakening of a soul immersed in lethargy (part I), contemplation of the world bathed in the rays of the sun (part II), the temptations of trivial pleasures to which the soul is exposed (part III) and finally – the eponymous rebirth of the human spirit to the call of the “eternal slogan”.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information at: www.sinfoniaiuventus.pl 

"The best piano duet of modern times" according to the New York Times. Muses of the greatest contemporary composers and conductors. Their magnetizing energy enchants listeners of the most prestigious concert halls in the world. On October 1, 2018 Katia and Marielle Labèque will perform with Sinfonietta Cracovia in ICE Kraków.

"Katia and Marielle Labèque are phenomenal artists, representatives of the absolute first league of world pianism" - says Jurek Dybał, director of the Sinfonietta. The concert programme will feature masterpieces of French music: works by Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc and Georges Bizet. We will hear, among others, Maurice Ravel's suite Mother Goose ‒ dedicated to the grandsons of Polish sculptor Cyprian Godebski, and the moving, nostalgic suite Le Tombeau de Couperin arranged for orchestra by Ravel himself. The virtuosos will also perform the thrilling Concerto for Two Pianos by Francis Poulenc, considered one of the greatest works of the composer. The programme will be complemented by Georges Bizet's Symphony in C major ‒ a youthful masterpiece portraying the talent of the author of the famous Carmen opera.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information at: http://sinfonietta.pl/