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A series of concerts and seminars on the 30th anniversary of the death of the eminent Polish composer and publicist of the Radio Free Europe, Roman Palester, will be held in Warsaw on 25-27 October 2019.

The University of Warsaw invites you to a three-day series of events organized by the University of Warsaw Foundation and the University of Warsaw Library with the support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The project emphasizes the artist's relationship with the university, and pays tribute to him on the 30th anniversary of his death. The versatility of Palester's compositional output will be presented during two monographic concerts: symphony concert in the Auditorium Maximum and chamber music concert in the Collegium Politicum of the University of Warsaw.

Outstanding musicians will present both his neoclassical works from the inter-war and war periods (including the stage premiere of the beautiful choral cantata Kołacze to words by Szymon Szymonowic), as well as examples of later works dealing with advanced musical means. In addition, two seminars will recall the important activities of the journalist of the Radio Free Europe station in Poland and his involvement in the creation of film music, especially in the 1930s. An example will be the movie Girls of Nowolipki (1937) directed by Józef Lejtes.

Admission to the events is free.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Full programme available at: https://www.buw.uw.edu.pl/

On Sunday, 27 October 2019 at 12 p.m. the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice will host a concert with the participation of Janusz Olejniczak on the 170th anniversary of the death of Fryderyk Chopin.

The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra will perform under the baton of Jerzy Maksymiuk. The programme will include: Ignacy Jan Paderewski – Nocturne in B flat major (instr. Jerzy Maksymiuk), Fryderyk Chopin – Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21, Sergei Prokofiev – Symphony No. 1 in D major 'Classical', Op. 25. The concert will be hosted by Marcin Majchrowski.

Youthful songs are often written out of love. Paderewski composed the Nocturne in B flat major for the beautiful, several years older pianist Raluce Bibesco-Bassaraba, Princess Brancovan, with whom he allegedly had a fiery romance. In the orchestral version, this melancholic miniature's resemblance to the central part of Chopin's Second Piano Concerto will become clear. Iwaszkiewicz once wrote that the first entrance of the piano in Larghetto "sounds like opening a gate to a sanctuary of love and peace." Indeed, the composer confided in Tytus Woyciechowski that when writing this song, he thought about his affection for the singer Konstancja Gładkowska, who six months after Chopin's departure from the country ceased to correspond with him. Prokofiev created his symphony at the idyllic dacha near Petrograd, without access to the piano, away from the hustle and bustle of the war and revolution, away from his first love Nina Mieszczerska, with whom he recently broke off the engagement – after a row with her father who did not intend to give up his daughter to the artist with no fixed income. He composed a concise, condensed pastiche of an eighteenth-century symphony in the style of Haydn. Love often fails composers – each of them, however, transforms emotions into music differently.

The concert is held under the patronage of the PWM Edition as part of the TUTTI.pl project promoting the performances of Polish music.

More information at: http://www.nospr.org.pl/

The 8th "NeoArte – Synthesizer of Arts" – international festival presenting the most interesting trends in contemporary music and art – will be held in Gdańsk on 23-26 October 2019.

The originator of the festival that focuses on the synthesis of arts is the Tri-City ensemble NeoQuartet, winner of the Pomeranian Artistic Award of 2019. Contemporary composers create works combining video art and theater, visual artists create sound installations, theater and dance are moving towards performative art. It is becoming increasingly difficult to set boundaries between various fields of creativity, and it is becoming easier to combine them.

This year's festival will last five days, featuring nine concerts, two artistic installations, a radio play and several performances. Composition students will have the opportunity to take part in composer workshops led by the festival's patron Gwyn Pritchard, as well as performance workshops presented by Alwynne Pritchard. Children and youth will be able to participate in electronic music creation classes led by Krzysztof Topolski. Each concert is planned as a multidisciplinary performance, which makes the audience paricipate in the artistic process.

In the Gdańsk garrison, the audience will participate and co-create the premiere of the latest project of the Krakow artist Piotr Peszat – Into the Heart of Hearts (2019) for acoustic and electric string quartet, live-electronics and live-video. The finale of the festival, "NeoArte Night" in the New Synagogue, is a challenge for both the audience and performers – the 12-hour concert marathon will premiere latest works by contemporary Polish composers written for piano and string chamber orchestra.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Full programme available at: http://neoarte.pl/ 

The Warsaw Wind Ensemble Conducting Competition 2019 is the first edition of the international competition for wind orchestra conductors, which will be held in Warsaw on 23-27 October 2019.

The competition will consist of three stages and 20 conductors from 11 countries will compete. Participants will be judged by a jury chaired by Prof. Szymon Kawalla, PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Composition, Conducting and Music Theory at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.

The first stage will take place from 23 to 24 October (8:00–10:00 p.m.) at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music (auditorium 338). The conductors will be accompanied by two pianists, and the performance will include Dance Sacrale from the ballet The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky and the Bajka Concert Overture by Stanisław Moniuszko. The next stages of the competition will take place in the District Cultural Centre Ursynów. The second stage will be held from 25 to 26 October (4:00–10:00 p.m.). Conductors will lead the Festival Orchestra consisting of musicians from Youth Warsaw Wind Orchestra. The repertoire will include two pieces: Serenade in D minor for wind instruments by Antoni Dvorzak and Film Variations on the theme of the aria “Szumią jodły na szczycie” by Stanisław Moniuszko by Tomasz Dudziński.

On 25 and 26 October, after the competition auditions (8:00 and 9:00 p.m.) there will also be lectures given by pedagogues, composers and musicians (the speakers will be pedagogue and composer Ignacy Zalewski, composer Paweł Pudło, trumpeter musician Bartłomiej Łubian and composer Artur Słotwiński).

The final of the competition will take place on Sunday, 27 October (4:00–7:30 p.m.), during which the 6 best conductors will lead a much larger Festival Orchestra consisting of musicians from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences Representative Orchestra and Youth Warsaw Wind Orchestra. In the repertoire of the finale, Second Suite in F major for military orchestra by Gustav Holst and Overture Year 1918 by Artur Słotwiński. The culmination will be the Gala Concert, which will take place at the end of the Competition, on 27 October at 8:00 p.m. in District Cultural Centre Ursynów. The winners of the Competition will be announced during the concert. The best conductors will receive prizes and conduct the Festival Orchestra, which will perform works from the competition repertoire.

All events are free and all auditions are open to the public.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information at: www.wwecc.warsawwindmusic.pl 

The Association of Polish Chamber Musicians invites you to the 3rd Festival "Krakow Music Salon: Moniuszko – Żeleński", which will take place betwwen 24 October and 23 November 2019.

To this day the festival is the largest regular event promoting the work of Władysław Żeleński. This year's edition will be devoted not only to Żeleński, but also to Stanisław Moniuszko on the occasion of his 200th birth anniversary. Both composers highly contributed to the development of Polish songwriting, which is why the festival programme will include three vocal recitals, as well as an orchestra concert with arrangements of Moniuszko's songs, recitals of piano duo, reed trio and string quartet, lectures on the songs of Moniuszko and Żeleński, and Polish songwriting in the 20th century.

The list of performers includes the Messages Quartet, LLLeggiero Woodwind Trio, Ravel Piano Duo, Urszula Kryger, Krzysztof Urbaniak and many others. This year's festival will also promote two CDs: on 17 November Ravel Piano Duo will promote their Polish Kaleidoskope No. 4, while on 21 November soprano Magdalena Molendowska and pianist Julia Samojło will promote the first, complete recording of Zygmunt Stojowski's songs.

Admission to all events is free.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Full programme available at: http://www.spmk.com.pl/salon/