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This year's 10th anniversary edition of the NDI Sopot Classic International Festival will be held on 26 July – 1 August 2020. Traditionally, the festival concert present the culture of different countries. In 2020, the organizers invite you to a musical meeting with the Czech Republic.

The festival was initiated by Wojciech Rajski – conductor and artistic director of the Polish Chamber Philharmonic in Sopot. The festival's titular sponsor is the NDI Group. The inaugural concert with the orchestra will be devoted to Czech music: classical and popular. The first part will feature works by Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana, interpreted by outstanding soloists: Izabela Matuła (soprano),Piotr Buszewski (tenor) and Maciej Kułakowski (cello). The star of the second part of the concert will be Helena Vondráčková, who will present her most famous songs to the Sopot audience.

As every year, one of the festival concerts will be devoted to the works of Polish composers. Piano Concerto in E minor, Op. 11 by Fryderyk Chopin will be performed by Ingolf Wunder, winner of the 2nd Prize at the 16th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. The Sopot Chamber Philharmonic will also present Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", which brought Henryk Mikołaj Górecki popularity unprecedented in the world of contemporary music. The solo part in the Symphony will be performed by Katarzyna Trylnik, an artist permanently associated with the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera.

The soloist of the final Opera Gala will be the world-famous tenor Rolando Villazón. During the concert in Sopot, the artist will be accompanied by soprano Pumeza Matshikiza, recognized by The Independent as "one of the most exciting voices in contemporary opera".

The Festival is co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund as part of the "Music" programme operated by the Institute of Music and Dance.

Full programme is available at: http://sopotclassic.pl/ 

The NOSPR AI application is now available at https://ai.nospr.org.pl/. It is an innovative project initiated by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, which uses advanced artificial intelligence to talk about music. Thanks to the implementation of Watson Assistant by IBM Services, NOSPR brings the experience of communing with a symphony orchestra online.

The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) in Katowice and IBM (NYSE: IBM) in cooperation with their strategic partners – Fujitsu Technology Solutions, ING Bank Śląski and Katowice City Hall, as well as GAZ-SYSTEM and schools associated in the P-TECH programme, announced the launch of a verbally interactive virtual assistant NOSPR AI, which uses IBM Watson solutions and IBM's public cloud.

Until the end of 2020, on the internet platform https://ai.nospr.org.pl/, you can "ask" artificial intelligence about topics related to classical music, receiving immediate answers in Polish, and at the same time navigating in the virtual concert hall of the NOSPR in Katowice. You can ask questions using your voice or typing, while listening to rarely published audiovisual recordings of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. NOSPR AI will tell you what the composer was inspired by when creating a given piece, what instrument plays a solo part or, for example, how much the piano weighs. The launch of the project was preceded by extensive quality tests conducted by the IBM and NOSPR project teams. In the initial training, 9,000 questions were collected in less than 3 weeks. IBM and NOSPR hope to expand this tool in the coming years.

On 19-25 October 2020 the Gdynia Film School organises the III edition of the film scoring workshop with the Oscar winner Jan A.P. Kaczmarek. Applications must be submitted by 15 September.

The workshops are intended for music school students and graduates of music academies interested in film scoring as well as people who do not have music education but compose film music. Knowledge of DAWs (Logic, Protools, Reaper etc.) is recommended. Candidates will be chosen after submitting two scores of two original works or sound recordings of their compositions.

Participants will have a unique chance to establish collaboration with students of directing at the Gdynia Film School. One of the main goals of the workshop programme will be to score their films under the supervision of Jan A.P.Kaczmarek. The composer will teach group and individual classes, which he will arrange at his own discretion (approx. 20 hours of group work and approx. 30 minutes of individual instruction). Classes will be held at the Gdynia Film School for 7 consecutive days.

The workshops should end with at least one GFS student's film with a full music track.

More information at: https://bit.ly/2WAQ8km 

The final concert of the 5th "TRZY-CZTE-RY. Contexts. Contrasts. Confrontations" Music Festival will take place on 26 July 2020 at 7:00 p.m. and will be broadcast live on the Internet.

"TRZY-CZTE-RY. Contexts. Contrasts. Confrontations" is a unique event that combines elements of timelessness and contemporaneity. Presented works are sometimes contrasted with each other, but the main idea is to confront listeners with new artistic visions and new contexts. This year's edition featured music by such Polish composers as Karol Szymanowski, Mieczysław Wajnberg, Krzysztof Penderecki, Andrzej Panufnik, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Hanna Kulenty, Paweł Szymański, Cezary Duchnowski and Andrzej Karałow.

During the final concert Jan Krzysztof Broja, a laureate of the international piano competitions in Hanau (1989), Brunswick (1991), Bucharest (1995), Vilnius (1999) and Pasadena – Los Angeles (2002), will perform works by Fryderyk Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven, to which the fifth edition of the Festival is devoted. We will hear Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor WoO 80 and Sonata No. 12 in A flat major, Op. 26 and Fryderyk Chopin's mazurkas and nocturnes. As Marcin Majchrowski points out, 'Chopin had no equal in bringing simple forms and genres to the limits of sublimation. This is evidenced by two late opuses – the Mazurkas, Op. 59 and the last Nocturnes, Op. 62 – sophisticated essays on musical beauty ”.

Live streaming: https://youtu.be/ed2NoEBdiBk 

The project was co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund as part of the "Music" programme operated by the Institute of Music and Dance.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Full programme is available at: https://www.festiwaltrzycztery.pl/ 

The next concert of the Emanacje Festival will be filled with cello music, which occupied a special place in Krzysztof Penderecki's work. On 26 July 2020 at 7.00 p.m. in Lusławice, young generation cellists, graduates of the educational programmes of the European Music Centre, will perform together with the Polish Cello Quartet.

The composer's passion for the cello was born out of admiration for the art of several virtuosos, including Siegfried Palm and Mścisław Rostropowicz. The next concert will feature groundbreaking works, which represent the artist's significant gestures towards important events taking place in the history of Poland, as well as expressing the most personal feelings towards his loved ones.

Serenata for three cellos became a birthday present for his beloved wife, Elizabeth. Chaccone per archi, completed in 2005, was dedicated to the memory of the late Pope John Paul II and incorporated into the Polish Requiem. Almost 10 years after the premiere of the piece, the composer arranged it for 6 cellos. Agnus Dei for 8-voice choir a cappella was written in 1981 after the death of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, who was a close friend of the composer. Also a part of the Polish Requiem, the work was arranged for 8 cellos in 2007. The full, low sounds of the cello choir, derived from a nostalgic motif of a minor third, prompt reflections on final matters.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Detailed programme is available at: www.emanacje.pl