our projects

Roman Maciejewski – pieces for two pianos

The project "Roman Maciejewski – pieces for two pianos" was created thanks to the support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as part of the "Culture on the Web" programme.

It is dedicated to the promotion of Polish music and compositions for piano duo, emphasizing the important role of Roman Maciejewski in Polish musical life.

The project includes audio-video recordings of such Roman Maciejewski's works as Mazurka, Lullaby, Tarantella, the Negro spirituals series, Deep River, Listen to the Lambs, Sometimes I feel like Motherless Child and I want to be ready. The pieces were performed by the Chopin Piano Duo composed of Anna Boczar and Bartłomiej Kominek.

The recordings were made in September 2020 in the Concert Hall of the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music in Lusławice. Sound director – Małgorzata Polańska (DUX), video director – Grzegorz Kućmierz ("Presto" Artistic Agency).

The material is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ocngeRpR2w

Roman Berger's jubilee album

For the 90th birthday of its Honorary Member Roman Berger, the Polish Composers' Union – in co-operation with the National Centre for Culture Poland and thanks to support from the Society of Authors ZAiKS – released a CD with a monumental work of this great composer and philosopher entitled Missa pro nobis.

Roman Berger was born in 1930 in Cieszyn, Poland, in the family of Józef Berger, a doctor of theology and evangelical minister in Český Těšín (in the disputed region of Zaolzie) and a wartime prisoner of concentration camps in Auschwitz and Dachau. After graduating from the Polish secondary school in Český Těšín, in 1949 Roman Berger entered the State High School of Music in Katowice, studying piano with Marta Furmanik and music theory with Jan Gawlas. In 1952, his family was forced to move to Bratislava, where he resumed his studies at the Academy of Music and Drama, first as a pianist and later as a composer in the class of Dezider Kardoš (1961–1966). He has never come back to live in Poland, and Slovakia became his new homeland.

In an essay prepared for the CD booklet, Roman Berger wrote:

The (confidential) message that the Polish Composers’ Union was going to release my Missa pro nobis on CD moved me greatly, [...] Classical (and even more pop) music, especially sacred compositions, are not written for our own pleasure (“so that it feels nice,” as stated in Sławomir Mrożek’s Émigré). I therefore took this message as an expression of the PCU management (presided over by Mieczysław Kominek) solidarity with the message of my work, intended as a response to St John Paul II’s ‘commandment’ which the Holy Father put forward in the context of the 50th anniversary of the Holocaust (let me quote from memory): “Let people dare to sing today, as long as their song will be a lament, a protest, or a sign of hope”.

The project is carried out in cooperation with the National Centre for Culture and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Records issued by POLMIC are intended for promotion, education and scientific research only. They are not for sale. They are provided free of charge to interested institutions and individuals, but due to the very small circulation and large interest, music libraries have priority, where a larger group of people can benefit from each set. If you are interested, please contact the Polish Music Information Center POLMIC (Izabela Zymer, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

www.droba.polmic.pl - a new website devoted to Polish music theorist and critic

On the initiative of the programme board of the ‘Warsaw Autumn’ International Festival of Contemporary Music, whose members were Krzysztof Droba’s colleagues and friends a new website – www.droba.polmic.pl was created, devoted to Krzysztof Droba. It is the Polish Composers’ Union’s first website dedicated to a music theorist and critic.

The first public presentation of the new website took place during the 49th Polish Composers' Union Musicological Conference, on October 26th, on the internet platform of the Academy of Music in Cracow - the conference co-organiser - and was broadcast to Vimeo.

The Polish Composers’ Union gives its sincere thanks to all the persons and institutions whose assistance and commitment have made this project possible, and in particular:

• the Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania, for making photographs of state decoration ceremonies available;
• our colleagues from the Lithuanian Composers’ Union, especially to Ruta Stanevičiūtė, Onutė Narbutaitė, Vytautas Landsbergis, and Feliksas Bajoras, for their inestimable support in documenting Krzysztof Droba’s work in the field of Lithuanian music and sharing memories;
• experts: Professors Teresa Malecka and Eugeniusz Knapik, for their support;•
Eva Maria Jensen, Maria Wiktoria Hübner, and Kazimierz Płoskoń, for sharing photos;•
composers, performers and the publisher: PWM Edition, for their kind permission to make recordings of works dedicated to Krzysztof Droba available on our website;
• all those who have agreed to share their memories of Krzysztof.

We are particularly grateful to Mr Bogusław Droba, Krzysztof’s brother, for kindly sharing with us his memories and materials from the family collection.

Partners:
Academy of Music in Cracow
Academy of Music in Lodz
Lithuanian Composers Union
PWM Edition

Subsidised by the National Centre for Culture under the programme Kultura w sieci.

More: "About the project"

Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC will create a catalog of works related to the widely understood Olympic theme

Due to the cooperation of the Polish Composers' Union with the Polish Olympic Committee, the Polish Music Information Center POLMIC intends to create a catalog of works related to the widely understood Olympic theme, which will facilitate the selection of candidates for the "Olympic Laurel" prize.

This is a special award of the Polish Olympic Committe established in 1967 "as an expression of appreciation and respect for Polish artists who shape the humanistic values of sport and its image in society". The prizes are awarded in four-year Olympic cycles in various fields of work. The list of winners include representatives of the visual arts, musicians, writers, filmmakers, photographers, and architects. The "Olympic Laurel" medal was designed by the sculptor Stanisław Sikora and is awarded for lifetime achievement or a particular work. Cultivating the tradition of combining art with sport by the Polish Olympic Committee emphasizes the importance of culture and art in spreading the Olympic idea. The prestigious prize was awarded to, among others, Krzysztof Penderecki and Wojciech Kilar.

We encourage you to send information on musical works related to the Olympic movement, sport, peace and similar topics by 18 January 2021 to the address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Presentation of a new website dedicated to Roman Maciejewski

Concert and presentation of a new monographic website prepared by the Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC will take place on 26 September 2020 (Saturday) at 6.00 p.m. in the Chamber Hall of the National Philharmonic in Warsaw.

The new website – available at www.maciejewski.polmic.pl – is entirely dedicated to the extraordinary Polish composer Roman Maciejewski and his work.

The presentation will be hosted by Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska and Lech Dzierżanowski. In the second part of the meeting, Chopin Piano Duo – Bartłomiej Kominek and Anna Boczar – will perform Roman Maciejewski's works for two pianos.

Live streaming will be available on the YouTube channel of the Polish Composers' Union: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe2h6r9A9OKgrSU2FUem0rw.

The presentation of the website dedicated to Roman Maciejewski is a fringe event of the 63rd "Warsaw Autumn" International Festival of Contemporary Music.

The project was financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as part of the "Digital Culture" programme.

Direct link to live streaming: https://youtu.be/ShRKBHRVc_g

Children's Art Centre in Poznań deposited scores to POLMIC

Based on the cooperation agreement between the Children's Art Center in Poznań and the Polish Composers' Union, the archive of the Poznań institution is now available at the Polish Music Information Center POLMIC website.

Children's Art Centre in Poznań is a culture institution controlled by the local government. It has been in operation for almost 30 years. It runs diverse and interdisciplinary initiatives in the area of art for children and teenagers. Its objectives are to inspire the creation of professional culture for children, to promote and spread the word about valuable trends in art and to popularize and support the development of innovative methods of cultural education. The Centre's statute tasks include the organization of the Biennial of Art for Children and the International Young Audience Film Festival Ale Kino! as well as the execution of educational and artistic projects.

The Centre has pioneered many cultural initiatives. It understands its mission on a variety of levels: inspiring academic debates, organizing artists' meetings, producing theatre plays, organizing multiple workshops: for visual arts, music, theatre and film. It is active as a publisher: “New Drama for Children and Teenagers” and a series of books “Art and Child”. The Centre organizes the only interdisciplinary art festival for children – the Biennial of Art for Children and the largest film festival for children and teenagers – the International Young Audience Film Festival Ale Kino!

Within several decades of activity, the Centre commissioned and collected in its archive a valuable collection of works for children by contemporary Polish composers. They are intended to be performed by professional musicians (most items) or with the participation of children in the audience (numerous items), and even by the children themselves (several items). They were created primarily for the needs of the series of contemporary music concerts for children entitled "Music and Fun", hosted in the years 1987-2015 by Hanna Gawrońska.

Under the cooperation agreement between the Polish Composers' Union and the Children's Art Centre in Poznań, the collected music materials and – in some cases –CDs were deposited and made available to readers in the Polish Composers' Union Library – Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC. The Children's Art Centre in Poznań remains the copyright owner of the compositions and scores and one should notify the intitution in order to purchase or rent materials.

DOWNLOAD: CATLOGUE – COLLECTION OF MUSICAL WORKS OF THE CHILDREN'S ART CENTRE IN POZNAŃ.

Sound Chronicle of the 61st “Warsaw Autumn” International Festival of Contemporary Music

The Sound Chronicle of the 61st "Warsaw Autumn" International Festival of Contemporary Music, which took place in September 2018, is available on audio compact discs as a non-commercial promotional edition.

The Chronicle consists of ten CDs. Traditionally, the last CD in the set has been dedicated to the youngest composers. The CD No. 10 presents pieces from two concerts organized by the Youth Circle of the Polish Composers' Union as fringe events of the "Warsaw Autumn"; the recorded compositions were selected by the Youth Circle Board.

The other nine CDs, as in previous years, contain selected works performed as part of the main programme of the Festival – by both Polish and foreign composers, in total thirty-two artists. The selection criteria include artistic level of the work and its performance, nad potential problems related to copyright and related rights.

The chronicle is published only for promotional, educational and research purposes. It is not intended for sale. It is provided free of charge to interested institutions and individuals, but due to the very small circulation and large interest, music libraries have priority, where a larger group of people can benefit from each set. If you are interested, please contact the Polish Music Information Center POLMIC (contact: Izabela Zymer, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Unfortunately, this is the last available Chronicle of the "Warsaw Autumn". Until now (this paragraph is written in April 2020), the Polish Music Information Center POLMIC has not received funding that would allow publication of the Chronicle of the last year's edition of the Festival. This is a huge loss, not only for the public, but also for artists. Many artists and performers, from Poland and abroad, who have agreed to participate in the project, follow its fate with tension and anxiety. Unfortunately, we must constantly answer that the chronicle is "not yet" published. The same answer is addressed to libraries and other institutions, as well as individual music lovers who were hoping and still counting on receiving new free records with Polish and foreign latest contemporary music.

TO BE DOWNLOADED: PROGRAMME OF THE SERIES.

„Polski Rocznik Muzykologiczny” 2019: Przeszłość w muzyce – muzyka wobec tradycji

Tematem przewodnim „Polskiego Rocznika Muzykologicznego” 2019 (t. XVII) jest „Przeszłość w muzyce – muzyka wobec tradycji”.

W dziewięciu artykułach, będących pokłosiem 47. Ogólnopolskiej Konferencji Muzykologicznej ZKP, która odbyła się w dniach 25–27 października ubiegłego roku w Instytucie Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Warszawie, zróżnicowana grupa autorów analizuje różne formy obecności muzyki przeszłości w kulturze wszystkich muzycznych epok oraz bada relacje muzyki do tradycji reprezentowanej przez rozmaite gatunki muzyczne, ośrodki i regiony czy grupy społeczne. Na tom składają się ponadto dwa artykuły dotyczące prowadzonych współcześnie w Polsce badań historyczno-muzycznych oraz komunikat zawierający uzupełnienia i poprawki do opublikowanego w „Polskim Roczniku Muzykologicznym” z 2012 roku artykułu (wraz z katalogiem) na temat gdańskiej tabulatury lutniowej D-B Danzig 4022 z początku XVII wieku. Osobną sekcję „Rocznika” tworzą dwa teksty (w języku angielskim) dotyczące historii Sekcji Muzykologów ZKP i najważniejszych zakresów jej 70-letniej działalności, które były prezentowane na konferencji pt. „Musicological Societies as Intermediaries between Society, Musical Life and Academia” zorganizowanej w listopadzie 2018 roku w Utrechcie z okazji 150-lecia istnienia holenderskiego Królewskiego Towarzystwa Historii Muzyki, najstarszego stowarzyszenia muzykologicznego na świecie.

Publikacja została sfinansowana ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na promocję i upowszechnianie nauki na podstawie umowy 730 / P-DUN / 2019.

Od 2019 roku "Polski Rocznik Muzykologiczny" udostępniany jest pod nowym adresem strony internetowej: polskirocznikmuzykologiczny.pl.

„Musicology Today” 2019 – Women Composers in Poland

The 16th volume of the "Musicology Today" – a double-blind peer reviewed journal published by the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw and the Polish Composer’s Union, has been published. It is entirely devoted to Polish women composers.

“The present volume of “Musicology Today” contributes, on the one hand, to the global trend of ‘feminist musicology’, while on the other it provides us with a unique opportunity to present some outstanding but not always sufficiently well-known Polish women-composers. The seven papers published in the present volume include the profiles of women-composers spanning the period of nearly three centuries, from Maria Antonia Walpurgis (1724-1780) to Justyna Kowalska-Lasoń (b. 1985), a talented Polish composer of the youngest generation.” – wrote Sławomira Żerańska-Kominek in the editorial.

The main objective of „Musicology Today” is to provide an intellectual platform for international scholars and to promote interdisciplinary studies in musicology. The journal publish articles in the fields of historical musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, and other sub-disciplines of musicology. It distinctly promotes studies on Central and Eastern European music and aims to become a leading musicological journal in this part of the world.

The publication has been financed from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education allocated for the promotion and dissemination of science under agreement 730/P-DUN/2019.

All the articles are available online at: https://content.sciendo.com/muso

Muzyczne wizytówki - Portrety współczesnych kompozytorów polskich - Seria II

W roku 2013 Polskie Centrum Informacji Muzycznej POLMIC zainicjowało serię płytową „Muzyka polska dzisiaj – portrety współczesnych kompozytorów polskich”. Wydanych zostało wówczas 10 monograficznych płyt kompaktowych audio, poświęconych muzyce aktualnie tworzących polskich kompozytorów należących do różnych generacji: Zbigniewa Penherskiego, Lidii Zielińskiej, Magdaleny Długosz, Tadeusza Wieleckiego, Anny Zawadzkiej-Gołosz, Jacka Grudnia, Jarosława Siwińskiego, Michała Talmy-Sutta, Ewy Trębacz oraz Aleksandra Kościowa. Projekt był realizowany we współpracy z Polskim Radiem S. A. i dzięki wsparciu Ministerstwa Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego.

Od samego początku istniał zamiar kontynuowania projektu i wydawania kolejnych płyt. Starania w tym kierunku zakończyły się sukcesem w roku 2019, kiedy to POLMIC otrzymał dofinansowanie dla czterech kolejnych płyt w ramach programu „Muzyczny ślad”, realizowanego przez Instytut Muzyki i Tańca. Do tej edycji wybrano cztery postacie: Jana Krenza (ur. 1926), Jerzego Maksymiuka (ur. 1936), Grażynę Pstrokońską-Nawratil (ur. 1947) oraz Jerzego Kornowicza (ur. 1959).

Nagrania pochodzą głównie ze zbiorów POLMIC – Biblioteki Związku Kompozytorów Polskich (są to rejestracje koncertów „Warszawskiej Jesieni”, „Warszawskich Spotkań Muzycznych” oraz cyklu „Portrety kompozytorów”), ponadto z Archiwum Polskiego Radia (wśród nich są najwybitniejsze nagrania archiwalne zespołów radiowych), a także z innych źródeł zarekomendowanych przez bohaterów płyt, którzy żywo włączyli się w prace nad swoimi wizytówkami.

Eseje napisali autorzy, którym zarówno opublikowana muzyka, jak i postacie kompozytorów są szczególnie bliskie: Grażyna Teodorowicz, Mieczysław Kominek oraz Katarzyna Bartos. Szczególny charakter ma tekst zamieszczony w książeczce Jerzego Kornowicza, gdyż jest to zapis (fragment) ogromnie ciekawej rozmowy dwóch kompozytorów: bohatera płyty i Tadeusza Wieleckiego, która odbyła się podczas prac nad płytą.

Celem wydawnictwa jest również promocja wykonawców, którzy chętnie zgodzili się na udział w projekcie, dzięki czemu na płytach zostały wydane świetne nagrania wielu innych najwybitniejszych polskich i zagranicznych zespołów, dyrygentów oraz solistów. Im, jak również wszystkim innym osobom i podmiotom, których działania, wsparcie i wszechstronna pomoc umożliwiły wydanie płyt w ich obecnym kształcie – wszystkim Kompozytorom, Wykonawcom, Autorom, Reżyserom Dźwięku, Fotografikom, a także wielu Instytucjom Muzycznym – wydawca składa niniejszym serdeczne podziękowania.

Płyty wydawane przez POLMIC przeznaczone są wyłącznie do celów promocyjnych, edukacyjnych i naukowych. Nie są sprzedawane. Przekazywane są nieodpłatnie zainteresowanym instytucjom i osobom, przy czym ze względu na bardzo mały nakład i duże zainteresowanie pierwszeństwo mają biblioteki muzyczne, gdzie z każdego kompletu może skorzystać większy krąg osób. Zainteresowanych prosimy o kontakt z Polskim Centrum Informacji Muzycznej POLMIC (kontakt: Izabela Zymer, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

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