On the 26th of March 2022 at 7 p.m. the Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra conducted by Ukrainian Victoria Zhadko, first award winner at the Grzegorz Fitelberg conducting competition in Katowice will perform together with violinist Karolina Nowotczyńska, at the Fryderyk Chopin Music University Concert Hall.
The concert will begin with the composition We are, a paraphrase of the melody of the national anthem of Ukraine, Ще не вмерла України ні слава, ні воля (‘Ukraine has not yet died, nor her glory, nor her freedom’).
Myroslav Skoryk, born in 1938, was a prominent figure in Ukraine’s musical environment as a composer and musicologist, as well as an artistic director of the Kyiv Opera. His moving, romantic Melody in A minor became popular in a number of arrangements. It was also performed during the funeral ceremonies for the victims of the pro-European Maidan Uprising in 2013/2014, murdered by Russians and forces favourable to puppet leader Viktor Yanukovych.
Two cycles of six pieces, known as the London Symphonies (No. 93-104), provide a symphonic summary of Joseph Haydn’s work. Several of them contain musical “extravagances” and the jokes for which Haydn was famous. One of these appears in the next to last of the London Symphonies, No. 103. Symphony in E flat major, which begins with a mysterious “drumroll” on the timpani from which the piece received its well-known nickname.
This simple rhythm of timpani percussion is also featured at the beginning of one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s violin concertos; The solo part will be performed by Karolina Nowotczyńska, the concertmistress and Director of the Elbląg Chamber Orchestra. Nowotczyńska graduated with honours from the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk, where she studied under Prof. Krystyna Jurecka. The winner of many prestigious international competitions, she is an active performer (including as a chamber musician) and pedagogue.
Grażyna Bacewicz’s appealing Concerto for String Orchestra from 1948 with its three-part structure in the arrangement of the “fast-slow-fast” parts and an evolutionary motif refer to the Baroque era. Stefan Kisielewski wrote about it jokingly: ‘such a modern Brandenburg Concert.
There will be free tickets available for the refugees from Ukraine and their hosts who may help to spread this information as well as assist with reaching the concert.
After Piotr Maculewicz's note
Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC