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100 days of solidarity in the fight against COVID-19 – further suspension of cultural activities

After analyzing the COVID-19 case data, the Council of Ministers developed a comprehensive plan and assumptions for the coming 100 days. The so-called responsibility stage will be in force from 28 November to 27 December 2020. A decision was made to further suspend the activities of the cultural institution.

The new solutions were discussed during the meetings of the Medical Council, the Economic Crisis Staff and the Government Crisis Management Team, as well as meetings with analysts and legislators of the Prime Minister's Office and the Government Legislation Center. As part of the work, three draft regulations on restrictions, orders and bans in connection with the state of the epidemic were prepared.

In accordance with the regulation of the Council of Ministers on the establishment of certain restrictions, orders and bans, until 27 December, entrepreneurs (within the meaning of the provisions of the Act of 6 March 2018 – Entrepreneurs' Law) and other entities conducting creative activity related to all collective forms of culture and entertainment are allowed to conduct certain activities without the participation of the public: 1) activities necessary to prepare artistic events, such as rehearsals and exercises; 2) phonographic and audiovisual recordings; 3) events transmitted by means of direct remote communication.

Until 27 December, a restriction on the activities of public and scientific libraries, cultural institutions and other entities operating on the basis of the provisions of the Act of 21 November 1996 on museums (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 902) shall be established, consisting in the prohibition of: 1) making the collections available to the public; 2) organisation of events with the participation of the public – with the exception of activities carried out by means of direct remote communication and making the collections available in a non-contact form, in compliance with the relevant sanitary requirements.

More information at: https://www.gov.pl/web/koronawirus/100-dni-solidarnosci-w-walce-z-covid-19

Wieniawski again in the Poznań Bazaar

The Henryk Wieniawski Music Society in Poznań invites you on 26 November 2020 at 8.00 p.m. to a unique online recital in the series "Wieniawski znów w Bazarze" [Wieniawski again in the Bazaar], featuring violinist Piotr Pławner, pianist Piotr Sałajczyk and the Silesian Quartet.

The patron of the Society performed many a time in Poznań with great artistic success. One of his favourite venues was the White Hall in the Poznań Bazaar, a historic building which is preserved today in a slighly different shape.

The concert in the Bazaar on 26 November will be performed by Piotr Pławner – winner (ex aequo) of the 10th International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition (1991), well-renowned pianist Piotr Sałajczyk and the excellent Silesian Quartet. The programme will refer to 19th-century recitals. We will hear rarely performed masterpieces of chamber music as well as pieces for violon solo, piano solo and string quartet. In the first part of the evening, Piotr Sałajczyk will perform two miniatures from the series Roses and Thorns, Op. 13 by Juliusz Zarębski, and Piotr Pławner will present solo caprices by Grażyna Bacewicz. The second part will be dedicated to Krzysztof Penderecki, who passed away on 29 March 2020. Members of the Silesian Quartet will commemorate this outstanding composer by performing his String Quartet No. 4.

More information at: https://www.wieniawski.pl/

"FINA na ucho": Kwartludium

Kwartludium, an ensemble specializing in contemporary music performance, will perform online as part of the "FINA na Ucho" series on 26 November 2020 at 8 p.m.

Kwartludium was formed in 2002 by Dagna Sadkowska (violin), Michał Górczyński (clarinet, bass clarinet), Paweł Nowicki (percussion), Piotr Nowicki (piano). The ensemble focuses on performing works of young composers active both in Poland and abroad created specifically for this unique instrumental combination. Kwartludium possesses in its artistic output dozens worldwide premiere performances on many prestigious festivals all over the world. Also contemporary improvised music plays an important role in the group’s activity.

The upcoming concert at the National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute (FINA) will feature Kwartiuda for quartet by Piotr Jędrzejczyk, Multiple Image for chamber ensemble and ticking clocks by Tadeusz Wielecki, as well as works by Lothar Voigtländer, Peter Helmut and the latest piece by Helmut Zapf – Kwartludium (quattuor musici canunt) – written especially for the ensemble.

Live streaming will be available on the FINA's Facebook Page.

JOIN: Facebook Event

Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław: Composers' Concert

Students of the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław will present their latest compositions during an online concert on 25 November 2020 at 7.30 p.m.

The programme will feature solo and chamber pieces. New piano works will include the conceptual Impercerebrum by Zuzanna Klepacka, composed of six parts referring to the successive levels of organisation for living things, the atmospheric Ukłuć, zakołysać by Hubert Walkowski and The Last Lullaby and Colors of Autumn by Jakub Fornagel, based on the aesthetics of the beginning of the 20th century and on improvisation.

We will also hear accordion and guitar pieces. Magdalena Gorwa's solo traveler talks about life as a journey, while Alina Dzięcioł's Station 5 is based on the road concept and presents an intriguing combination of accordion and button portative sounds. The programme will also include Dawid Aleksy Dorożyński's November's rays of sun and Paulina Derska's music for the animation Inner Feeling, inspired by Japanese cinematography.

The concert will be streamed on the Wrocław Academy of Music's YouTube channel.

JOIN: Facebook Event

International conference on-line: "Musical Works and Cultural Traditions"

The Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz invites you to the International Conference "Musical Works and Cultural Traditions", which will be held online on 24-25 November 2020 on the Academy's Facebook page.

The programme of the conference features 8 sessions, including one devoted to the 20th-century moderne, attended by researchers from Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Germany, Romania, Mexico and Australia. Barbara Mielcarek-Krzyżanowska will present a paper entitled "Lignum vitae" – Zygmunt Mycielski reads the Book of Genesis. Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska will talk about 'war symphonies' in Polish music in the late 1940s. Blake Parham will devote his paper to dodecaphony in the works of Roman Palester. The oeuvre of Andrzej Krzanowski and Mieczysław Weinberg and its affinities with Beethoven's music will be discussed by Magdalena Stochniol and Agnieszka Nowok-Zych. Agata Krawczyk will talk about Jan Kochanowski’s Laments [Treny] as a Source of Inspiration: Selected Musical Settings of the Text in the Works of Polish Composers.

The online Composer's concert accompanying the Conference on 24 November at 8.00 p.m. will premiere the Jubilee Suite on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Faculty of Composition, Theory of Music and Sound Engineering of the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. The work consists of miniatures written especially for this occasion by teachers, graduates and students of composition at the Bydgoszcz Academy: Zbigniew Bargielski, Magdalena Cynk, Rafał Gorzycki , Paweł Grajnert, Piotr Gryski, Marcin Gumieli, Jia Haonan, Hanna Kulenty, Małgorzata Królak-Radziejewska, Marcin Kopczyński, Dariusz Kubicki, Jędrzej Rochecki, Maciej Różycki, Manuel Salas, Monika Sroczyńska and Sergiusz Wrotek. The Jubilee Suite will be premiered by excellent musicians associated with the Academy.

Full programme is available at: http://www.amuz.bydgoszcz.pl/wydarzenia/international-conference-on-line-musical-works-and-cultural-traditions/

12th "Muzyka u Źródeł" Chamber Music Festival

The "Muzyka u Źródeł" ["Music at the Source"] Chamber Music Festival will take place for th 12th time at the Waterworks Museum in Bydgoszcz on 21-29 November 2020. This year, all the concerts will be recorded and presented online on the festival's YouTube channel.

The organiser’s objective is to popularize chamber music and present its attractive, polychromic face, while paying special attention to providing the best environment for the reception of music. The unquestionable asset of the festival is the venue – historic Waterworks Pump Hall owned by Bydgoszcz Waterworks, the Festival’s patron.

The event will be inaugurated by the Festival Chamber Orchestra, which will perform, among others, Mieczysław Karłowicz's Serenade and Alexander Borodin's Polovtsian Dances. On Sunday, the Vołosi ensemble will take the audience to the modern world of jazz with a hint of folk. On the next weekend, talented soloists of Polish theaters and music scenes will sing the most beautiful songs from Disney films, and the icing on the festival cake will be a concert of Szymon Nehring with the accompaniment of the Barock Quartet, who will perform, among others, Fryderyk Chopin's Piano Concerto in F minor and Andrzej Koszewski's Concerto grosso all'antica per archi.

This year's concerts will be available to everyone free of charge, but the organisers decided to provide the possibility of paying a donation to the event's account to all people who recognize the value of the concerts and want to support the festival.

More information is available at: www.muzykauzrodel.com

12th Schaeffer's Era from the New World – Schaeffer in L.A.

Ghost Road Company (Los Angeles) and Warsaw Bauhaus Foundation (Warsaw) present an international real-time collaboration: original works of dance, theatre and film, created to respond to the work of maverick Polish composer and playwright Boguslaw Schaeffer livestreaming on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Monday 23 November 2020 at 12 p.m. (Los Angeles) and 9 p.m. (Warsaw).

In Warsaw, under the auspices of Aurea Porta — a Polish non-profit organization devoted to disseminating the legacy of Boguslaw Schaeffer’s work through artistic projects—well-known actors Lidia Bogaczówna, Izabela Warykiewicz, Marcel Wiercichowski, Sean Palmer, Witold Jurewicz, and musicians Włodek Pawlik, Michał Urbaniak,Michael Patches Stewart, Janusz Radek, Marcin Wyrostek with Tango Corazon (Piotr Zaufal, Krzysztof Nowakowski, Mateusz Adamczyk, Daniel Popiałkiewicz) will perform Schaeffer’s work Era Schaeffera, while Los Angeles-based actors Peter Mark, Anthony Nikolchev, Paul Outlaw, Izabella Miko and Jessica Emmanuel will interpret an original script adapted from several Schaeffer's plays by the project’s longtime director, Maciej Sobociński performing in situ at REDCAT | CalArts theatre.

Noted Los Angeles choreographers Heidi Duckler, Laurie Sefton and Micaela Taylor are each creating dance films shot in unique outdoor locations in which company members perform short works inspired by or accompanied by Schaeffer's music. This ninety-minute live stream from Warsaw and Los Angeles will consist of simultaneous performances being mixed live by the theatre director as a veritable VJ.

The show will be available online on the Aurea Porta Friends of Arts Foundation's Facebook page and website as well as on the HowlRound streaming platform.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Penderecki in memoriam

Krzysztof Penderecki, one of the greatest Polish composers, would have turned 87 years old on 23 November 2020. On the Master's birthday, the City of Krakow, Krakow Festival Office, Sinfonietta Cracovia and Ludwig van Beethoven Association invite you to a unique concert "Krzysztof Penderecki in memoriam", which is a tribute to one of the greatest composers of contemporary music. The concert will be available on the Play Krakow platform at 7.00 p.m.

The festive concert of Sinfonietta Cracovia is a tribute that the musicians of the excellent Krakow orchestra pay to Professor Krzysztof Penderecki – their longtime master, friend and artistic supervisor. The concert of the Orchestra of the Royal Capital City of Krakow conducted by Jurek Dybał was recorded in the ICE Krakow Auditorium Hall, which bears the name of Krzysztof Penderecki since May 2018. Together with Sinfonietta Cracovia performed flautist Agata Igras and oboist and English horn player Sebastian Aleksandrowicz.

The concert will open with Three Pieces in Old Style, based on music for the famous film The Saragossa Manuscript by Wojciech Jerzy Has. Then we will hear the moving Agnus Dei from the Polish Requiem in the Boris Pergamenschikow's arrangement for string orchestra authorized by the composer as well as pieces with spectacular solo performances: Capriccio for oboe and 11 string instruments and Adagietto for string orchestra and English horn from Paradise Lost. In the final of the concert, Sinfonietta Cracovia will present Krzysztof Penderecki's Sinfoniettas, which are orchestrations of his chamber works prepared by the composer himself.

For the Master's birthday, Sinfonietta Cracovia also recorded a unique album Penderecki's Sinfonietta(s), the premiere of which is scheduled for 20 November 2020. The album features the premiere recording of the Sinfonietta No. 3 "Leaves of an unwritten diary".

More information at: http://beethoven.org.pl/blog/2020/11/16/penderecki-in-memoriam-zapraszamy-na-wyjatkowy-koncert/

Composition for the Warmian-Masurian Philharmonic – Concerto No. 2 for flute and orchestra by Marta Ptaszyńska

The world premiere of Marta Ptaszyńska's Concerto No. 2 for flute and orchestra will take place on 20 November 2020 at 7.00 p.m. in the online version available on the Warmian-Masurian Philharmonic's YouTube channel. The piece was created as part of the "Composing Commissions" programme carried out by the Institute of Music and Dance.

The Concerto No. 2 will be performed by the flautist Agata Igras and the Symphony Orchestra of the Warmian-Masurian Philharmonic under the baton of Piotr Sułkowski. The piece has a typical three-movement structure. According to the composer, it can be performed both with a full symphony orchestra and with a chamber one, which emphasizes its intimate character.

The first movement alludes to Middle Eastern mysticism: the artist refers to the symbolism of numbers and sounds, builds an alchemical puzzle to be decoded by attentive listeners, but also creates a dramatic and simply beautiful, sensual sonic space, paying attention to the colours of individual instruments. The second movement, as in classical and romantic concertos, is a lyrical cantilena. The solo part is performed by an alto flute with a low, warm, velvety sound, close to the human voice. In this part, the soloist is accompanied only by a harp and strings – the composer's intention was for this movement to function as an independent, chamber instrumental miniature, in which "one of the oldest and most beloved duets – the flute and the harp – comes to the fore". The final movement emphasizes the virtuosity of the soloist.

More information at: https://filharmonia.olsztyn.pl/koncert/kompozycja-dla-filharmonii-ii-koncert-fletowy-na-flet-i-orkiestre-marty-ptaszynskiej/#