The 68th International Festival of Contemporary Music "Warsaw Autumn" will take place from 19 to 28 September 2025 under the theme "Glimmer".
As Jerzy Kornowicz, Director of the Warsaw Autumn, emphasizes, "Glimmer" – the keyword of this year’s edition of the Festival – symbolizes a new stage, an opening, and an opportunity. Both from a social and individual perspective. It refers to the hope we would like to have for the future in these times when everything seems to be on shaky ground."
This year’s program is divided into six strands: the Main Strand, Warsaw Autumn Club, Little Warsaw Autumn, Warsaw Autumn – Contexts, the inter-festival strand combined into a cycle (HerSounds with the Sonics & Scenics festivals and HER Docs Film Festival, as well as "Labowa Jesień" with Hashtag Lab), and accompanying events. There will also be artist meetings, workshops for young composers, and broadcasts on the Festival’s Internet Radio.
At the heart of this edition will be the premiere that opens the Festival – the opera The Best City in the World. An Opera about Warsaw by Cezary Duchnowski, commissioned by the Capital City of Warsaw to mark the anniversary of the post-war liberation of the destroyed capital from German occupation. The production is a co-production of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera and Sinfonia Varsovia.
The ten autumn days will bring over seventy events of great variety in form: operas, concerts, performances, intermedia actions, soundscapes, radio plays, music theatre, exhibitions, music walks, films, installations, meetings, and discussions.
The Festival will host the Norwegian Ultima Festival, which has completed thirty-five editions.
In the Main Strand and Warsaw Autumn Club alone, sixty works will be presented – including fifty-eight premieres, world premieres, and first performances in Poland, as well as fourteen compositions commissioned by the Festival. We will showcase the work of fifty-six composers from twenty-three countries.
Concerts programmed and works commissioned by "Warsaw Autumn", in collaboration with other centers, have already been or will be performed at concerts by Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, and at festivals such as: deciBels in Tallinn, Transit Festival 20.21 in Leuven, New Music Dublin, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, Gaudeamus in Utrecht, Wien Modern, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Osterfestival Tirol, as well as at Concertgebouw Brugge and the headquarters of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice.
The Festival is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund – a state special-purpose fund – within the "Music" program implemented by the National Institute of Music and Dance, as well as by the Capital City of Warsaw.
The Festival is co-funded by the European Union’s "Creative Europe" program.
The Festival is a member of the Ulysses Network – a European cultural network supported by the EU’s "Creative Europe" program.
The commissions of the works Pascha Crucifixions by Piotr Tabakiernik and Lament for Ur. Assemblages from a Nonexistent City by Ewa Trębacz were co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund – a state special-purpose fund – within the “Compositional Commissions” program implemented by the National Institute of Music and Dance.
Partner: ZAiKS Authors’ Association.
Festival website: https://warszawska-jesien.art.pl/
