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The 2nd edition of the International Music Festival of Central-Eastern Europe "Eufonie" will take place in Warsaw on 15-23 November 2019, featuring 640 artists from 20 countries, 15 concerts, 8 orchestras, 3 world premiers and 7 Polish premiers.

"Eufonie" is a music festival, referring to the tradition of the regional community of most countries today referred to as Central and Eastern Europe, stretching from the Balkans, through Romania and Austria, the Visegrad Group countries, the Ukraine and Belarus, to the Baltic countries, sometimes extended to Scandinavia. This area is a fascinating melting pot of influences from the East and the West, boiling with cultural energy which often determined the identity of nations deprived of their own countries. The Festival present music of different eras and styles. This year's programme offer is richer and more diverse compared to the first edition. The repertoire is expanded to include ethnic and early music, as well as theater and dance performances.

In addition to the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra and Sinfonia Varsovia, the festival will feature the international I, CULTURE Orchestra, which brings together musicians from the region of Central and Eastern Europe. Not only recognized artists from our region will appear on the festival stages, but also soloists and ensembles from other parts of the world, including United States, Great Britain, Luxembourg or Spain. The programme presented this year will allow the audience not only to become more familiar with the repertoire and musical performance of our neighbors, but also countries not yet presented at the Festival: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia and Moldova.

An important part of this year's "Eufonie" are works commissioned by the National Center for Culture, which will have their premieres during the Festival: Song of Death – a unique spectacle with the participation of Jan Frycz and Adam Strug based on the text of Master Polycarp’s Dialogue with Death found by prof. Wiesław Wydra, and Incantations performance created by the electronic music composer Aleksandra Bilińska, singer Weronika Grozdew-Kołacińska and choreographer Jacek Przybyłowicz..

The festival is organized by the National Center for Culture thanks to funding from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The Polish Composers' Union is the festival's partner. The president of the Polish Composers' Union and the director of POLMIC Mieczysław Kominek is the chairman of the programme board.

More information at: https://nck.pl/projekty-kulturalne/projekty/festiwal-eufonie/ 

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/