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Gdańsk | Musical Epitaph in Memory of Paweł Adamowicz

Polish premiere of Epitaph for Paweł Adamowicz composed by Katarzyna Kwiecień-Długosz will take place on January 18, 2019 at 2:45 p.m.. Monika Kaźmierczak will perform the piece on the carillon of the St. Catherine's Church in Gdańsk.

Gdańsk is the only Polish city where there are three active concert carillons: two are located in the towers of St. Catherine's Church (50 bells) and the Main Town Hall (37 bells), the third – Carillon Mobile Gdańsk – has 48 bells. These exceptional instruments are under the supervision and care of the Gdańsk Museum. Katarzyna Kwiecień-Długosz wrote her latest work for this exceptional instrument, which sound is associated with Gdańsk.

The composer dedicated the Epitaph to the tragically deceased Gdańsk President. The work contains references to Gdańsk and Paweł Adamowicz (the themes are based on the a-d-a and g-d-a notes). Monika Kaźmierczak, acting as a city carillonist, encouraged prformances of this unusual piece by carillonists from around the world to solidify with the citizens of Gdańsk. They will pay homage to the President by performing the Epitaph on their instruments. The work in memory of President Paweł Adamowicz has already been played on the Belgian Carillon of Peace. On January 19 at 11.00 a.m., as part of the concert from the Dom Tower in Utrecht, the composition will be played by Gdańsk instrumentalist Małgorzata Fiebig.

In Gdańsk, the piece will be played during a weekly concert in the tower of the St. Catherine's Church at approx. 2.45 p.m. The carillonist will be joined by trumpeters from the band Tubicinatores Gedanenses. Musicians will also perform historical chorales.

Olsztyn | Tommaso Maria Mazzoletti's Organ Recital

The outstanding Italian organist Tommaso Maria Mazzoletti will perform at the first 2019 Organ Master's Recital at the Warmian-Masurian Philharmonic on January 18, 2019, at 7:00 p.m.

The artist was born in 1991 in Novara. He graduated from the Music Conservatories in Novara and Cuneo, where he was Massimo Nosetti's student in the organ and composition class. He also studied French organ music with Pierre Me, Italian organ repertoire with Emanuele Vianelli, and the art of improvisation with Fausto Caporali. In 2017, with the title "Master de Concert", he graduated from Haute École de Musique de Genève in the class of Alessia Corti. Since 2018, he is a deputy of the main organist of the cathedral in Lausanne. In addition, he is the president of the Orgue en Jeux-la Côte association (Mauvernay, Vaud) and the artistic director of the Orgue en Jeux festival.

The artist will start the recital with the Prelude and fugue in E Minor BWV 548 by Johann Sebastian Bach – one of Bach's longest, most ingenious and virtuoso organ pieces. A tribute to the Polish organ music will be the performance of Felix Nowowiejski's Prelude in E minor. The programme will also include works by French composers César Franck and Charles Maria Widor. The evening will end with the works of Italian artists: Marc Enric Bossi, Ottorino Respighi and Pietro Alessandro Yon.

Full programme available at: https://filharmonia.olsztyn.pl/koncert/mistrzowskie-recitale-organowe-3/

Kielce | Musical Voyages

A premiere of the Concerto for flute, piano and symphony orchestra by Mikołaj Majkusiak will take place on January 18, 2019 at 7.00 p.m. at the Oskar Kolberg Świętokrzyska Philharmonic.

Musical journey will begin in nineteenth-century Russia, with a work of Alexander Borodin – an outstanding chemist, professor at the St. Petersburg Medical Academy and composer. The Symphonic Orchestra of the Świętokrzyska Philharmonic under the direction of Jacek Rogala will perform Borodin's symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia, full of ilustrative elements, oriental melodies and motives from Russian songs.

Polish virtuosos – flutist Ania Karpowicz and pianist Marek Bracha – will premiere the Concerto for flute, piano and symphony orchestra by Mikołaj Majkusiak, commisssioned by the Świętokrzyska Philharmonic as part of the MKiDN programme "Composing Commissions", implemented by the Institute of Music and Dance. It is a rhythmically varied five-part composition. As the author notes, in addition to the virtuosity of soloists, "a very important aspect is a specific orchestration of the piece using soloist chamber groups that are part of the symphonic orchestra."

The last piece of the evening will be another programme work: Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" by Antonin Dvořák.

More information at: http://www.filharmonia.kielce.com.pl/press/press_18.01.19.html

Gorzów | Chamber concert "Three times lucky"

Chamber music of Aleksander Tansman and others can be listened to during the concert titled "Three times lucky", which will take place on January 18, 2019 at 7:00 p.m. in the Gorzów Philharmonic.

This concert is an opportunity to listen to works written for one of the most interesting sets of instruments, which is the classical reed trio (d'anches). The programme is composed to show the richness of oboe, clarinet and bassoon timbre. The individual works differ in style, character and mood.

Divertimento No. 3 KV 439b (c. 1783) comes from the set of 5 Divertimentos, which authorship, though completely unconfirmed, due to typical Mozart elements is attributed to the composer. The other compositions represents three different neoclassical trends of the first half of the last century. They are: Cinq Pieces en Trio (1935) by the French composer Jacques Ibert, romantic and lyrical Suite for the reed trio (1949) by Aleksander Tansman, and imaginative Divertissement for oboe, clarinet and bassoon (1927) by the Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff.

Information on tickets at: https://www.filharmoniagorzowska.pl/pl/calendar/event/1204/2019-01-18/19:00

Warsaw | Resounds. New Polish Music

On January 17, 2019 at 7.00 p.m., the Witold Lutosławski Polish Radio Concert Studio will host a second concert from the cycle "Resounds. New Polish music". The Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra will perform works of Mieczysław Weinberg and Grażyna Bacewicz. The organizers also invite you to a meeting with the composers' friends and relatives at 6.00 p.m.

The second concert of the cycle "Resounds. New Polish music" is a programmatic counterpoint to other events filled with world premieres of works commissioned by the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra. This time, the musicians will present composition from the 40s of the last century to show the wider historical context of new Polish music, with special emphasis on the period of World War II, and to illustrate the changes that have occurred since then. The pretext for this musical retrospection are two unique anniversaries.

This year, Mieczysław Weinberg would celebrate his 100th birthday. His Cello Concerto, Op. 43 will be interpreted by Marcel Markowski, a respected soloist, chamber musician, and also a leader of the Sinfonia Varsovia cello group. This work comes from the period when Weinberg, after escaping from Warsaw, was arranging his new life in exile in the USSR. The death of loved ones, the persecution of the Jews and the horrors of war were clearly reflected in music written by Weinberg at that time. Dmitri Shostakovich, who had great appreciation for Weinberg's work, helped him in many difficult moments. The programme will also feature the classicist and light Symphony No. 9 in E flat major by the Russian artist of Polish origin.

In addition, the day of the concert martk the 50th death anniversary of the most outstanding Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. During the concert, the musicians under the baton of Fuada Ibrahimova will perform her Overture for symphonic orchestra. This vivid miniature was written in 1944, and its first performance took place a year later, at the first post-war Festival of Polish Contemporary Music in Krakow.

To get to know the fate of these three composers, the organizers invite you one hour before the concert to the meeting with special guests. Andrei Ustinov, an outstanding musicologist and promoter of Weinberg's work in Russia, and Joanna Sendłak, writer and granddaughter of Grażyna Bacewicz, will talk about their memories related to the composers. The meeting will be led by Aleksander Laskowski.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information at: www.sinfoniavarsovia.org

Wrocław | Love sonnets

The first meeting with vocal literature this year will take place on January 17, 2019 at 7:00 p.n. in the National Forum of Music. The concert will be devoted to one of the most important feelings accompanying people throughout their lives – love.

The programme will include vocal works based on timeless literary works written in the 20th and 21st centuries in the interpretation of Joanna Dobrakowska (mezzo-soprano), Tobias Greenhalgh (baritone) and Marcin Kozieł (piano).

In the first decade of the twentieth century, Ralph Vaughan Williams became interested in the poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which resulted in the series The House of Life, including six songs on the subject of love. Love is also the main theme of the Three Songs after Stanisław Długosz written by Ludomił Rogowski at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The human voice plays a prominent role in much of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s output, considered nowadays the second most important Finnish composer after Jean Sibelius. He is the author of, among others, Three Sonnets of Shakespeare, Op. 14. In the final of this concert, the audience of the NFM will have a chance to be the first in Poland to listen to the unique Sonnets from Neruda by Geoffrey Gordon – a series of six songs to the lyrics by Chilean Nobel prize winner Pablo Neruda.

More information at: http://www.nfm.wroclaw.pl/component/nfmcalendar/event/6647

Łódź | Inauguration of the Grażyna Bacewicz Year

The Academy of Music in Łódź invites you on January 17, 2019 at 6.00 p.m. to the inauguration ceremony of the year of Grażyna Bacewicz on the 110th birth anniversary and the 50th death anniversary of the Academy's patron.

This important event for the academic community will feature the String Orchestra PRIMUZ of the Music Academy in Łódź under the baton of Łukasz Błaszczyk, performing Bacewicz's works (Concerto and Divertimento for string orchestra). A group of rhythmics students will also perform a special choreography to Divertimento. The ceremony will be complemented by a screening of a documentary on the life and work of Grażyna Bacewicz.

Grażyna Bacewicz – an outstanding composer and violinist – took her first lessons at the Helena Kijeńska-Dobkiewiczowa Conservatory in Łódź. After the war, she lectured briefly at the State Higher School of Music – today's Academy of Music, which in 1999 adopted the name Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz. The inauguration ceremony will start a year full of events related to the patron, including the 2nd International Violin Competition, the 6th Grazyna Bacewicz International Composer Competition and the publication of a special publication of the Department of Composition, Theory of Music, Conducting, Rhythmics and Music Education of the Academy of Music in Łódź.

Admission to the inauguration ceremony is free.

Detailed programme at: http://www.amuz.lodz.pl/pl/koncerty-i-wydarzenia-zapowiedzi/styczen-2019/153332-uroczysta-inauguracja-obchodow-roku-grazyny-bacewicz

Katowice | Mieczysław Weinberg Days

The National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestrainvite invites you to the January concert series devoted to the work of Mieczysław Weinberg whose 100th birth anniversary is celebrated this year. Mieczysław Weinberg Days will be held on January 17-27, 2019 in Katowice.

A total of 22 symphonies, including seven for voice and orchestra, eight operas, 17 string quartets, concertos, sonatas, cantatas, and songs… One cannot stop marvelling at the richness and diversity of Mieczysław Weinberg’s life work. He was a composer “from three worlds”: a Polish artist of Jewish origin, an émigré who settled in the Soviet Union, a student of Józef Turczyński and Vasily Zolotarev, a friend of Dmitri Shostakovich and Mstislav Rostropovich, and a witness of history who escaped death, and who firmly believed in humanism as the only cure for the madness of the 20th century.There is no doubt that this outstanding figure deserves to be introduced to the wider public, and there is no better time for that than the year 2019, with the 100th anniversary of his birth falling on December 8.

Days of Mieczysław Weinberg are an occasion to celebrate this centenary and to savour his works in superb interpretations. Among others, we will listen to Linus Roth, an outstanding violinist and one of the contemporary discoverers of the composer (final concert on January 27). It is on his initiative that the International Weinberg Society was founded to bring the composer and his work to public attention. The series will be inaugurated on January 17 by a NOSPR chamber concert. On January 18, Fantasia for cello and orchestra will be performed by the NOSPR orchestra conducted by Jamie Phillips along with the well-known cellist of the younger generation, Marcin Zdunik. Weinberg's music will be also included in the concerts of the Silesian Quartet and Michał Frenchman, Berlin Piano Trio and Joanna Freszel, young instrumentalists Wojciech Fudala and Michał Rot, the AUKSO chamber orchestra under the baton of Marek Moś, Jadwiga Kotnowska and Andrzej Ciepliński.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Detailed programme available at: http://www.nospr.org.pl/pl/

Gdańsk | 9th Days of New Music

On January 16-20, 2019, the 9th Days of New Music festival will take place at the Żak Club in Gdańsk.

Days of New Music, organized by the Żak Club, aims to present unconventional music. The festival's objective is to show the broad spectrum of the experimental scene, contemporary and avant-garde music. It defines new music as music which seeks new solutions in terms of form and content, through the specificity of compositions, instruments used, but also ideas on how to combine different, often incompatible styles. The 9th Days of New Music programme is a selection of the most interesting, according to the organizers, phenomena that fit in with these criteria.

During this year's edition, Neoquartet will present pieces for string quartet, grand piano, piano and electronics by Sebastian Zawadzki, written in minimalist, tonal style. A concert on January 18 will feature Ensemble Kompopolex – a group founded by Wrocław composer Jacek Sotomski, experimenting with form, concepts and multimedia. Cellist, composer and arranger Resina (Karolina Rec), a graduate of the Gdańsk Academy of Music, will present her chamber works on January 19. Japanese vocalist Hatis Noit, German pianist Martin Kohlstedt and Italian duo Luton will perform for the first time in Poland at the Gdańsk festival .

Full programme available at: https://klubzak.com.pl/koncerty.html