"Meeting with the Composers" on November 29, 2024, was full of surprises!
As part of the series organized by the ZKP, Michał Mendyk conducted an interview with composer Jerzy Kornowicz, which took an unexpected turn: most of the questions were related to his involvement in various social initiatives, his worldview, and his role in programming the International Contemporary Music Festival "Warsaw Autumn".
The audiovisual presentation showcased the full spectrum of musical genres in Kornowicz's works: from the most avant-garde to music for children.
A wonderful gift for the audience was the improvisation by the legendary band "Kawalerowie Błotni": Jerzy Kornowicz at the piano, Ryszard Latecki playing the trumpet, and for the first time, many of us heard Tadeusz Wielecki playing the violin. Thanks to Krzysztof Knittel and Tadeusz Sudnik, the small hall at the headquarters of the Polish Composers' Union was filled with cosmic ambient sounds – the layers of compositions they generated created an atmospheric backdrop for the improvised instrumental parts.
We also presented the Digital Archive page – the first digital archive of the library and archival materials of the Polish Composers' Union. The digitization of materials and their descriptions were handled by musicologist Dr. Agnieszka Cieślak-Krupa and art historian, museum specialist, and archivist Filip Wróblewski. Documents from the Polish Composers' Union's collections, regularly digitized by Filip Wróblewski, are uploaded along with descriptions to the "Zbiory Społeczne" portal, run by the Social Archives Centre – we discussed the contents of this unique collection of documents.
The event was organized as part of the project "Online Access to Archival Materials of the Polish Composers' Union" within the "Digital Culture" program.
We thank Mr. Maciej Borowski for the photos and the company "Grzegorz Mart - Contemporary Art Documentation" for recording the event.
Wiktoria Antonczyk
The event was co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund.
