Due to the prevailing pandemic and out of concern for the safety of artists and listeners, the 13th Gdańsk Music Festival was divided into two parts. The first part will take place between 9 and 20 May 2020 and will be broadcast on Radio Gdańsk. The concerts of the second part will take place between 29 September and 31 October 2020.
The 18th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition will be held in Warsaw next year. The winners of the Competition from previous years and this year's candidates will take part in the Gdańsk Music Festival. Adam Kałduński, the winner of the Polish Piano Festival in Słupsk (2019) and the 2nd Beijing International Fryderyk Chopin Competition for Young Pianists (2019), will perform on 18 May at 7.05 p.m. at the Gdańsk Radio Concert Studio. In 2020 he won the second prize ex aequo at the 50th National Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw and thus qualified for the Chopin Competition 2021. Already qualified for the next year Chopin Competition is also Piotr Pawlak, who will perform on 20 May at 7.05 p.m. The day before, at the same time, we will hear the broadcast of Adam Makowicz's jazz recital from the Polish Baltic Philharmonic.
2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Paul II. On this occasion, in the second part of the festival, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki's monumental work Beatus Vir will be performed by the Polish Chamber Choir Schola Cantorum Gedanensis, Kraków Philharmonic Choir and Polish Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jan Łukaszewski. The work was commissioned by Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, and the premiere took place after his election as Pope. The Beethoven Year will be celebrated by the performance of Beethoven's Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56 by artists cooperating with Deutsche Grammophon: pianist Jan Lisiecki, violinist Bomsori Kim and cellist Camille Thomas
Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.
Full programme available at: https://www.gdanskifestiwal.pl/ and www.radiogdansk.pl