The New Music Orchestra conducted by Szymon Bywalec invites you to another concert within the project “Mobile Residencies OMN 3.0” on 3 December 2025 at 7:00 p.m. – this time hosted by the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice. It will be an evening where four very different musical worlds meet: the debut of a young composer, iconic Finnish sonorism, the metaphysical poetry of Arab Andalusia, and a frosty, paradox-filled sea journey. Free tickets are required and can be reserved through the booking system on the Academy’s website.
The concert will open with the world premiere of Sinfonietta A Forward Retreat by young composer Michał Gaj, a student of the Katowice Academy in Aleksander Nowak’s composition class. Gaj creates music full of narrative tension, vivid dramaturgy, and a strong sense of sonority.
The programme will also feature one of the most fascinating works by José M. Sánchez-Verdú – a master of musical synaesthesia, literary allusion, and sonoristic imagination. Paraíso cerrado II for chamber orchestra and soprano, performed with soprano Dorota Nowak, is a sonic labyrinth inspired by the Alhambra and the poetry of Ibn Zamrak.
Performed by the New Music Orchestra and the Men’s Choir of the Academy, prepared by Tomasz Giedwiłło, we will hear Fiddler’s Green and White Savannas Never More by Aleksander Nowak for orchestra and male voices. Composed in 2006 on commission from the Friends of “Warsaw Autumn” Foundation, the work was premiered by OMN and the Camerata Silesia choir under Szymon Bywalec on 11 October 2006 at the “Velvet Curtain 2” Festival in the National Philharmonic Hall in Lviv. The piece is a metaphorical tale about the limits of perception and about how experience—at sea as well as within the human psyche—escapes the realm of the obvious.
The concert will conclude with Solar by Kaija Saariaho, one of the most important composers at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The concert is presented as part of the “Mobile Residencies OMN 3.0” project, co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund – a state special-purpose fund – under the “Music” programme run by the National Institute of Music and Dance.
Event partner: Katowice City of Gardens – Krystyna Bochenek Cultural Institution.
Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC
Ticket information: https://am.katowice.pl/wydarzenia/koncert-mobilne-rezydencje-3-0-3482
