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The Life and Art Foundation invites you to the third series of educational films about Polish composers, "Polskie Muzyczki" [Polish Women Musicians]. New episodes will be posted every Saturday from 24 April 2021 on the project's YouTube channel.

The project idea was born before the pandemic. Joint concerts of clarinet player Barbara Borowicz and pianist Anna Miernik were preceded by lectures aimed at introducing the performed music. Currently, instrumentalists have temporarily transferred some of their activities to the Internet. The idea of ​​their online project is to create a series of educational films dedicated to Polish composers, which are posted on YouTube and Facebook to watch for free. The artists want to pursue the idea of ​​"learning through play" –  their short film episodes contain high-quality content presented in a light and pleasant form of a dialogue between the pianist and clarinetist, who are also friends.

The third season of "Polskie Muzyczki" will start with an episode devoted to Krzysztof Penderecki on the 1st anniversary of his death. The series will also include interviews with Agnieszka Zdrojek-Suchodolska and Łukasz Woś. The remaining videos will talk about Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar, Karol Kurpiński and Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński. Facts from the history of music will intertwine with funny anecdotes, thus making the materials more accessible to an average audience and helping to break the "artist-viewer" barrier. The aim of the project is to encourge listeners to participate in live concerts when it is fully possible.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Polish Royal Opera invites you on 25 April 2021 at 7.00 p.m. to the world premiere of Krzesimir Dębski's Job – an opera based on Karol Wojtyła's drama. Online concert will be held on the Polish Royal Opera YouTube channel.

"I myself wrote a new drama with Greek form, Christian spirit, eternal content […]. A drama about suffering: Job". This is how the twenty-year-old Karol Wojtyła wrote about his work in 1940 in a letter to his friend – Mieczysław Kotlarczyk. The young playwright read the Old Testament tale of innocent suffering and the steadfastness of faith from a Christological perspective, and saw its parallel with the fate of Poland plunged in the horrors of war. As part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Polish Pope and the 80th anniversary of the creation of this extremely mature and symbol-rich text, the Polish Royal Opera invites you to a contemporary musical interpretation of the story of Job.

Krzesimir Dębski’s opera is full of bold juxtapositions of archaic language with modern orchestration techniques and the captivating sound of the choir’s commentary, reminiscent of a Greek tragedy. It is not without significance that the premiere of the work, originally planned for May 2020, had to be postponed due to the pandemic that spread across almost the entire world. For that same reason, it was not possible to present the concert version of the work in October 2020. Perhaps, however, all these difficult circumstances will strengthen the universal message of the work. It is, as the composer himself emphasizes, “an opera […] about the fate of a man who has fallen into misfortunes and then arises from this fall”.

More information at: www.operakrolewska.pl 

Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 1 "Spring" will be performed by the Jerzy Semkow Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra under Piotr Sułkowski on 24 April 2021 at 8.00 p.m., almost exactly 180 years after its premiere. We will also hear Schumann's Piano Concerto, op. 54. The solo part of this flagship piece representing Romanticism will be performed by Hubert Rutkowski.

"I am unable to write a concert for virtuosos, I must think of something else…" – those are the words Robert Schumann wrote to his fiancée Klara Wieck in 1839, when he came up with an idea to create a new type of a concert, so different from the ones that were so popular back then, the sole purpose of which was to showcase the soloist’s exquisite skills. The result of his Romantic revision of the classic genre was the one-part Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 48.

Schumann’s affection towards beautiful Klara can be heard in the first out of his four symphonies, called "Spring", in reference to a poem by a Romantic poet Adolf Böttger that supposedly had been Schumann’s inspiration, and to the titles given to the four parts of the piece (later withdrawn). The piece was composed in one creative impulse, in only several weeks in early 1841. It premiered on 31 March of the same year under the baton of Schumann’s friend, Felix Mendelssohn.

Piotr Maculewicz

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Broadcast on YouTube channel and www.sinfoniaiuventus.pl. 

1 August 2021 marks the centenary of the birth of Prof. Michał Bristiger (1921-2016). To celebrate this occasion, the editors of the "Res Facta Nova" journal invite you on 23 April 2021 at 6.00 p.m. to an online meeting dedicated to the famous Polish musicologist.

Prof. Michał Bristiger, an honorary member of the Polish Composers' Union, taught theory and aesthetics of music as well as music history at the University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and at the PhD programme of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He conducted research as a senior fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften von Menschen in Vienna. He co-organized several dozen Polish-Italian musicological conferences. From 1983 he collaborated with the Musicological Institute of the University of Palermo. In the years 1992-1998 he was permanently employed as a professor of music at the University of Calabria in Arcavacata di Rende and he lectured at the Macerata-Fermo University. From 1967 he was the editor-in-chief of the journal "Res Facta", which he founded  and which was later re-issued as "Res Facta Nova", and the accompanying periodical "Res Facta Library".

The upcoming meeting will be attended by editors of the 18th volume of the periodical "Michał Bristiger (1921-2016) in memoriam" as well as Karol Berger, Daniel Cichy, Aleksander Laskowski, Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarmińska, Monika Prusak, Anna Tenczyńska, and Sławomir Wieczorek.

The meeting will be held on the ZOOM platform with live-streaming on the YouTube channel of the Institute of Musicology at the University of Wrocław. To receive the meeting ID, please contact the organisers at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

JOIN: Facebook Event

"Usually hidden behind their sounds, giving the floor to the performers of their works, during the Festival of Premieres composers are in the center of attention. We celebrate their creativity and courage to confront us with habits, to provoke, challenge and surprise us" – emphasizes Ewa Bogusz-Moor. In 2021, the Festival of Premieres will be held with the participation of the audience and in the form of live broadcasts on the Internet. It will be divided into two parts: the spring one, from 23 to 25 April, and the autumn one, scheduled for October and November.

During the ninth edition of the event organised by the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, new works by Cezary Duchnowski, Marta Śniady, Mikołaj Laskowski, Aleksander Nowak, Karol Nepelski and many other great composers will be performed for the first time.

What is the theme of this year's Festival? This year, the composers will take up themes related to the theatricality of music, the complex network of connections between the elements and characters that make up the stage spectacle. For example, Mikołaj Laskowski will take a new look at the relationship between a musician and an instrument. The hero of the artistic installation View by Barbara Kinga Majewska will be one of the scenographic elements – a backdrop to Wagner's opera; the installation will be presented on October in the NOSPR foyer.

The programme will also include works with references to literature. In autumn, the youngest music lovers will watch a video opera by Jerzy Kornowicz with a libretto by Michał Rusinek. During the final concert of the festival, performed by the excellent Klangforum Wien orchestra conducted by Swiss conductor Titus Engel, we will hear a new piece by Cezary Duchnowski, inspired by the works of Stanisław Lem.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Tickets will be on sale from March 2021. Programme of the whole event is available at: www.nospr.org.pl