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Maestro Antoni Wit returns to the Opole Philharmonic on 25 October 2019 at 7 p.m. with a programme composed of French orchestral music as part of the "Zone of Stars" series.

The works by French composers, arranged in chronological order, represent diverse styles. Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre is a short and spectacular symphonic poem. Gabriel Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande suite, which consists of the incidental music for a play by Mauric Maeterlinck, has a completely different character. The work written by the Nobel Prize winner in literature of 1911 tells a story of a beautiful girl immersed in incurable melancholy. The Fauré score is also beautiful but at the same time sad and foggy. Albert Roussel's Bacchus et Ariane is ballet music based on a story rooted in mythology, which makes it somewhat crazy, and sometimes even ... noisy.

The concert is directed at several groups of listeners: frankophiles, who are truly fascinated by the land of wine and cheese and want to get to know French music better; music lovers – maestro Antoni Wit is a legend of the Polish music scene and his concert is a must see; and theater and literature lovers who will have the opportunity to listen to music composed for dramatic use.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Cemntre POLMIC.

More information at: https://filharmonia.opole.pl/wydarzenia/68-sezon-artystyczny-antoni-wit/ 

The workshops for children, during which the youngest participants will learn, play and improvise in the company of great musicians and unusual books, will be held on 25 and 26 October 2019 in three Greater Poland towns: Skoki, Wągrowiec and Krajenka.

Polish Society for Contemporary Music invites children aged 3-5 and 6-8 years old to participate in free improvisation classes together with their guardians. The musical guests of the upcoming workshops will be: Marcin Skaba (violin), Bartosz Smorągiewicz (saxophone) and Jarosław Siwiński (synthesizer). Adventure through improvisation with artists will be led by actor and director Grzegorz Ociepka.

The main idea of ​​the project is to trigger graphic-inspired improvisations. Children will create their own stories based on picture books. The improvised fairy tales will be then "translated" into musical language under the guidance of the class leaders. Improvisation is the most basic, primary and joyful form of music performance, which is why the workshops combine children's creativity and imagination with books and contemporary music.In addition to playing with improvisations and books, children will learn various techniques of sound extraction, which expose its color and dynamic values, and will also be able to play drums on their own.

Participation in the workshops is free – the number of places is limited.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information at: https://www.facebook.com/events/795964717504932/ and https://www.facebook.com/events/638156259924325/ 

The inauguration of the 2019/2020 season of the Pomeranian Philharmonic in Bydgoszcz will take place on 25 October 2019 at 7 p.m.. The Pomeranian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kai Bumann and accompanied by the violinist Sławomira Wilga will perform works by Mendelssohn, Karłowicz and Kilar.

Karłowicz and Kilar undoubtedly had one thing in common – adoration for the Polish mountains. Karłowicz, one of the greatest Polish composers and the best climbers of his time, a wonderful photographer, was taken forever by the beloved Tatra Mountains ... He died while climbing Mały Kościelec on 8 February 1909. He wrote the orchestral triptych Eternal songs in 1907. The work is perceived as the "manifestation of the composer's pantheistic credo, musical expression of his philosophy, the apotheosis of Nature-Universe." Kilar also loved mountains in the whole sense of this word. He was fascinated with and inspired by their unique folklore and highland melodies. In 1976 – on the centenary of Karłowicz's birthday – he composed the poem Kościelec 1909, which is a kind of epitaph that captures the last moments of Karłowicz's life.

The evening will start with a great hit of concert halls – Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, known for its beautiful melodies imbued with sweetness, "in which the violin sings about fulfillment of all longings and love." The soloist will be 25-year-old Sławomira Wilga – a graduate of the Academy of Music in Łódź in the class of Prof. Łukasz Błaszczyk, laureate of Polish and international violin and chamber competitions, cooperating with the International Lutosławski Youth Orchestra, the Primuz String Orchestra, the Baltic Neopolis Orchestra and Uncover Soloist.

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.filharmonia.bydgoszcz.pl/

The 11th "Schaeffer's Era" Festival will take place on 24 October 2019 at 8 p.m. in the Artistic Pool (Basen Artystyczny) in Warsaw (6 M. Konopnicka St.).

The "Schaeffer's Era" Festival is a cyclical event that combines music, theater and dance and promotes the rich creative output of the Polish contemporary composer, music theoretician, playwright, philosopher and graphic artist Bogusław Schaeffer. The Festival takes place in the autumn season in Warsaw, regularly since 2009. It is a multimedia and audiovisual event inspired by sound, word, movement, and image, which uses a collage technique.

11th "Schaeffer's Era" combines presentation of works by Bogusław Schaeffer with the celebration of his 90th birthday. The professor died less than a month after his 90th birthday, so this year's Festival will also be a symbolic farewell to the Master. A multimedia spectacle The Eternal Carousel directed by Maciej Sobociński combines performances by Polish and foreign stage artists with a display of Schaeffer's graphic works as well as fragments of his musical works in the interpretation and arrangement of young Polish musicians. Among hte performers there will be actors Lidia Bogaczówna, Izabela Warykiewicz, Sean Palmer, Marcel Wiercichowski, accordionist and composer Marcin Wyrostek with the band Corazone, singer Janusz Radek, rapper Andy Ninvalle, violinist and composer Patryk Zakrocki, pianist Maciej Piszek and composer and pianist Andrzej Karałow.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information at: http://aureaporta.eu 

The LutosAir Quintet, one of the most active wind ensembles performing contemporary music, will premiere three works by Polish composers at the chamber music concert on 24 October 2019 at 7 p.m. at the National Forum of Music in Wrocław.

The Thursday concert will begin with the performance of Six Bagatelles for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and French horn by the Hungarian composer György Ligeti, who went down in history as a great avant-garde artist. The Bagatelles are his early work, written in 1953, before leaving his homeland, and the musical language used in it is easier on the ear than his later compositions. They are arrangements of another of his compositions, the Musica ricercata for piano. The title of the fifth one, Béla Bartók in memoriam, points to an important source of inspiration for Ligeti during this period. Despite the fact that these miniatures are graceful and accessible, the Soviet censorship decided that the last Bagatelle was too radical and did not allow it to be performed during the premiere of the work in 1956.

Other works in the programme were written by contemporary Polish composers. The Wrocław audience will also have an opportunity to listen to the world premieres of the Brass Sextet by the Wrocław composer Ewa Podgórska, Dr JanKeys by the violist and composer Dawid Pajdzik and the Concert Suite for bass clarinet and wind quintet by Nikola Kołodziejczyk. The commission of the latter work was subsidised from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage – Culture Promotion Fund as part of the "Composing Commissions" programme realised by the Institute of Music and Dance.

More information at: https://www.nfm.wroclaw.pl/component/nfmcalendar/event/7269