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On 26 January 2021, for the 28th time, outstanding artists were awarded Polityka's Passports – one of the most important cultural awards in Poland. Seven winners were selected from among 21 nominations. This year the jury also presented an additional, special award in a 'remote culture' category.

The awards are presented in seven categories: film, literature, theatre, visual arts, classical music, popular music and digital culture. Since 2002, the "creator of culture" award has also been presented for special achievements in promoting culture. During the ceremony broadcast by TVN, the winners received PLN 20,000, and the nominees – PLN 15,000. This year's passports were collected by: Piotr Domalewski (film), Justyna Sobczyk and Teatr 21 (theatre), Artur Liebhart – Millennium Dosc Against Gravity (remote culture), Mira Marcinów (literature), Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (visual arts), Duet Siksa (popular music), Studio Different Tales (digital culture), Bożena and Lech Janerka (ceator of culture).

In the 'classical music' category, Ania Karpowicz was awarded a Passport "For consistency and effectiveness in promoting forgotten 20th century music and contemporary music, including the work of young women composers. For creating the Hashtag Ensemble and the WarszeMuzik festival, which have already become part of our musical landscape". Flutist Ania Karpowicz (b. 1983), prizewinner of national and international music competitions, studied in Łódź and Detmold. In 2013 she established the Hashtag Ensemble cooprative, which performs at contemporary music festivals in Poland. She initiated a number of concerts and festivals, including WarszeMuzik – a series of musical interventions in the courtyards of the surviving tenement houses of the Warsaw Ghetto, presenting chamber music composed by Jewish composers who used to live in Warsaw. As a soloist, she places particular emphasis on the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. She is also involved in the promotion of women's creativity.

This year's nominees were also Krystian Lada and Martyna Pastuszka.

Polityka's Passport Gala 2020 is available to watch at: https://www.polityka.pl/fotoreportaze/2100723,1,cieszcie-sie-slowem-tworzcie-paszporty-inne-niz-zawsze.read?src=mt 

The Polish Baltic Philharmonic invites you to a symphonic concert featuring violinist and composer Marcin Markowicz. The online broadcast will take place on 29 January 2021 at 7.00 p.m. on the Philharmonic's YouTube channel.

Marcin Markowicz will perform his own Violin Concerto, commissioned in 2018 by the "Spaces of Music" Chamber Music Festival in Konin. This will be the first performance of the piece in Gdańsk. The versatile musician – performer and composer – has served as concertmaster of the NFM Orchestra in Wrocław, and is currently concertmaster of the Polish Radio Orchestra, member of the Lutosławski String Quartet and artistic director of the Princess Daisy Ensemble Festival in Książ. Marcin Markowicz also plays in the Jazz Band Młynarski-Masecki. Together with Marcin Masecki, he has been organising a series of chamber concerts in Warsaw.

The Polish Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ewa Strusińska will also present relatively rarely performed pieces: Romance in F major No. 2, Op. 50 for violin and orchestra by Ludwig van Beethoven and Overture for wind instruments by Felix Mendelssohn.

More information at: https://www.filharmonia.gda.pl/ 

Does music call for gender equality? It can surely defend itself. Nonetheless, the artistic advantages of excellent present-day women-composers and their eminent predecessors are worthy of being noticed and highlighted. Women have their separate and distinctive voice in Polish music. In recognition of the need to acknowledge that voice, on 29 January 2021 Anaklasis will release the CD Polish heroines of music, comprising orchestral works by Elżbieta Sikora, Hanna Kulenty, Grażyna Bacewicz, and Agata Zubel.

This most recent album in the"Sounds" series is the result of cooperation between PWM Edition and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, which aim is to create and disseminate a new canon of music by Polish women-composers by promoting Polish culture worldwide. The third project participant is the French Orchestre Pasdeloup, which has undertaken to record four pieces by outstanding Polish women-artists. The orchestra is led on this album, appropriately to the task, by Marzena Diakun, an extraordinarily gifted woman-conductor.

Elżbieta Sikora’s piece Sonosphère V. Wanda Landowska, included on the CD, combines acoustic tradition with electric modernity. The mastery of French jazz guitarist Misja Fitzgerald Michel, whose virtuosic electric guitar solo conjures up, in accordance with the composer’s intentions, the nervousness and sound colour of Jimi Hendrix’s playing, will leave no one indifferent. Hanna Kulenty’s Aisthetikos brings us in contact with metaphysical trance and musical surrealism. This work is interpreted here by excellent soloists: saxophonist Bartłomiej Duś and pianist Magdalena Duś, who premiered the piece less than a year ago at Kielce’s Świętokrzyska Philharmonic. Contradizione is a classic by the eminent composer and violin virtuoso Grażyna Bacewicz, who also was a proficient pianist and writer. Agata Zubel’s In the Shade of an Unshed Tear attempts to explore the possibilities of a Beethoven orchestra in contemporary music. Anaklasis release features the world premiere recording of this composition.

More information at: www.anaklasis.pl 

The Polish Composers' Union launches new websites: "POLMIC Digital Archive" and the portal dedicated to "Roman Maciejewski". The presentation of both sites (open to public) will take place on the Zoom platform on Thursday, 28 January 2021 at 2 p.m.

The PCU's Music Library collection of recordings, photographs, scores and documents will be published at www.archiwumcyfrowe.polmic.pl. A significant part of the collection is related to the "Warsaw Autumn" International Festival of Contemporary Music, organised since 1956 by the Polish Composers' Union. The portal will also feature scores, many of which have not yet been published, publications related to the festivals, concerts and other events organised by the PCU, as well as articles on contemporary music. We will also make available extremely interesting archival documents concerning the functioning of the PCU in the political reality of the People's Republic of Poland. All spheres of life were permeated by politics at that time, the best example of which was the famous Conference of Composers and Music Critics in Łagów Lubulski.

The series of monographic websites devoted to Polish contemporary composers is also growing. At www.maciejewski.polmic.pl you can find a detailed biography of Roman Maciejewski (1910–1998) presented in an attractive audio-visual form with many illustrations and a comprehensive presentation of his work with sample recordings. Roman Maciejewski spread his musical wings in the interwar period, gaining the recognition of such authorities as Karol Szymanowski, and after emigration, due to the political situation in the world and his own philosophy of life, he gradually disappeared from the consciousness of music lovers. Thus, Maciejewski became part of a larger phenomenon – a "piece" of a puzzle composed of a whole generation of intellectuals and artists, often outstanding, yet forgotten. A generation that musicologist Tadeusz Kaczyński called with the term "lost generation". Fortunately, from around 1989, the work of émigré composers gradually began to be included in the general history of Polish music, which also contributed to the growing interest in Maciejewski. Currently, his works are more and more appreciated by performers, musicologists and music lovers.

The projects were co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund as part of the "Digital Culture" programme.

Both portals will be presented on the zoom platform: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/76732024573?pwd=V2ZJa1hBdmJGK0JqZVdyQWNIUzRaUT09  (Meeting ID: 767 3202 4573, Passcode: 93s1jH) 

The last album released in 2020 by the Polish Composers' Union as part of the "Polish Music Today – Portraits of Contemporary Polish Composers" series is completely unique. Due to the special relationship and fate of both characters, the publisher made an exception and decided to devote the album to two composers instead of one. In addition to works by the "Polish-Swiss composer" Konstanty Regamey, the CD includes pieces by his father, Konstanty Kazimierz  – an almost completely unknown composer, who worked mainly in distant Ukraine, and in 1938 was sentenced to death by the Soviet regime.

The originator of the project and the author of the essay for the album is Jerzy Stankiewicz, who has devoted many years to researching the life and work of both Regamey (as well as popularizing the discovered works and contexts).

He invited two renowned artists to participate in the project – sisters Olga Pasiecznik (soprano) and Natalia Pasiecznik (piano). They performed a repertoire of songs and romances as well as piano pieces by the Regameys. The recording was made in the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of the Polish Radio in August 2020 by Ewa Guziołek.

The booklet contains essays written by musicologist Jerzy Stankiewicz and literary scholar Anna Bednarczyk (in Polish and English), as well as song lyrics in the original languages ​​(Polish and Russian) and their translations into Polish and English prepared by Anna Bednarczyk and Marta Kaźmierczak.

Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund as part of the "Musical Trace" programme operated by the Institute of Music and Dance. The album was released thanks to the support of the ZAiKS Authors' Association. The project partner was Repliq Media Sp. z o.o. Co-producer of the recording and CD edition is Programme 2 of the Polish Radio.

The Polish Composers' Union own releases are intended solely for promotional, educational and research purposes. They are not intended for sale. They are provided free of charge to interested institutions and individuals, but due to the very small circulation and large interest, priority is given to music libraries, where a broad audience can benefit from each set. If you are interested, please contact the Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC (contact: Izabela Zymer, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

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