- Executive Director: Artur Szklener
The Fryderyk Chopin Institute is the greatest Chopin centre in the world, which fully and comprehensively promotes, protects, investigates and popularizes the heritage of Fryderyk Chopin. The multidimensional and differentiated activity of the Institute is the answer to the work and life of the composer – rich, ambiguous, being a challenge and task for the next generations of listeners, performers and scientists, fascinated by this music and figure.
The Institute, established in 2001 by the decision of Polish Parliament and remaining under the direct control of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, has taken care for Chopin’s heritage, continuing the tradition originating yet at the end of the 19th century (first by Warsaw Music Association, Chopin Committee, post-war Fryderyk Chopin Institute and Fryderyk Chopin Association).
In the centre of its activities, there is always music – all undertakings of the Institute have their roots in it. Each year, the Institute organise the ‘Chopin and His Europe’ international festival – one of the most important and best recognised festivals in Poland. It is the main source of the series of CDs and DVDs published by the Institute, on which, among others, the interpretations of Chopin’s music on period and contemporary instruments are recorded.
Every five years, the Institute organise the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition – one of the oldest and most important piano competitions in the world (its history reaches 1927), opening the concert stages of all continents to its winners. For dozens of years, among laureate of the Competitions there have been the greatest pianists of the 20th and 21st centuries, creating the history of the contemporary piano playing.
The trend of the publishing and scientific activity of the Institute comprises, among others, the organisation of the international conferences and musicological symposia, publication of constantly developing series of academic and popular books, and especially important, planned for dozens of years project of publishing the facsimiles of all remained musical manuscripts of Chopin.
The Fryderyk Chopin Museum, located at the Ostrogski Palace in Warsaw, is the branch of the Institute. Thanks to the modern approach to the topic of life and art and using the multimedia, it is one of the most modern biographic museums in Europe. The Birthplace of Fryderyk Chopin and Park in Żelazowa Wola is a department of the Museum.
The Institute also undertakes multidimensional educational activities – for children, for adults and for young, talented pianists. The institution teach through lessons in the museum, Little Chopin Academy, educational and artistic events (such as the International Children’s Day in Żelazowa Wola), cycles of lectures for adults in the Museum or the cycle of concerts called ‘Young Talents’.
updated: 2020 (ac)
