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The fifth edition of the Kwadrofonik Festival will take place on 7-21 November 2019 in Warsaw.

Light and sound – these are two forces of nature affecting our senses. In a capacious and tolerant art universe, light and sound have the right to meet. Looking, seeing, perceiving, shading, interpreting the light, its meaning and colors – both by directors, composers and invited musicians – will be the theme of this year's edition of the Kwadrofonik Festival. Black and white Buster Keaton's silent film with unusual sounds of percussion instruments in the score performed by the Pękala / Kordylasińska / Pękala duo, two black pianos from which pianists of the Lutosławski Piano Duo will bring out all shades of French Impressionist masterpieces – from white to black, or the songs of the blind singer Moondog in the intimate interpretation by Natalia Przybysz, Raphael Roginski and Širom – these are the proposals of the upcoming edition of the Festival.

Th Warsaw premiere of Urlicht for keyboard instruments and percussion written by the Kwadrofonik members will take place on 21 November at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. This new project is a musical interpretation of the phenomenon of light: not only as a physical force, but also as pure energy that has existed since the very beginning of the universe. In the Urlicht project Kwadrofonik creates a form of variations based on the chorale and its counterpoint, which resound separately or enter into dialogue with each other.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Full programme available at: www.kwadrofonik.pl 

The next edition of the "Silesian Composers' Tribune" festival will take place in Katowice on 4-15 November 2019.

The "Silesian Composers' Tribune" is a Katowice festival with a long, over 40-year tradition and great importance for the Silesian music culture. It aims to present the significant achievements of Silesian musicians and to familiarize the audience with the work of outstanding 20th- and 21st-century music composers. This year's edition includes diverse events taking place at the Katowice Academy of Music, the M. Karłowicz State Music School and the Academy of Fine Arts.

The inauguration concert will premiere Wojciech Stępień's chamber opera The Black Mirrow – a mystery in 12 scenes with a prologue and epilogue, which was written as part of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage "Composing Commissions" programme, implemented by the Institute of Music and Dance. On 12 November we will listen to another work created within the programme – Przemysław Szczotka's Dissociatio performed by Piotr and Agnieszka Kopińscy. The festival will also feature world premieres of works by Sonia Brauhoff, Przemysław Scheller, Piotr Ceglarek and Tomasz Bauc as well as meetings with composers and a lecture by PhD Przemysław Scheller Xenharmonia – irregular temperaments on systems that go beyond the commonly used twelve-tone equal temperament.

Free admission to all events!

More information at the Festival's Facebook Profile.

The international conference dedicated to Mieczysław Weinberg on the 100th death anniversary will take place on 7-10 November 2019 at the Academy of Music in Kraków.

The event is organized by the Violin and Viola Department. The conference will be attended by PhD Beata Bolesławska (Polish Academy of Sciences), PhD Maria Sławek (Academy of Music in Kraków), and music critic Dorota Szwarcman. The speakers will discuss the relationships between music and power, the work of composers in exile and will new research on Polish musicians of Jewish origin.

The works of Mieczysław Weinberg, Andrzej Panufnik, Ryszard Sielicki and Grażyna Bacewicz will be presented during three concerts with the participation of world-famous musicians: Linus Roth, Wajnberg Trio (Krzeszowiec / Dobrowolski / Sałajczyk), Maria Sławek, Monika Gardoń-Preinl, Mieczysław Szlezer, Aleksandra Kuls. Linus Roth, who is a violin professor at "Leopold-Mozart-Zentrum" at the University of Augsburg, the artistic director of the 10th Leopold Mozart International Violin Competition and of the "Ibiza Concerts" international festival, in 2015 founded the International Mieczysław Weinberg. On 8 November, the professor will conduct a lecture in English.

Full programme available at: https://www.amuz.krakow.pl/event/mieczyslaw-weinberg-tworca-wobec-historii-tozsamosc-interpretacje-konteksty-konferencja-naukowa-w-100-rocznice-urodzin/ 

Around 400 photographs from the "Warsaw Autumn" festival archives is available on www.polmic.pl as part of the "Warsaw Autumn Available!" project.

In the last three years, the Polish Music Information Center POLMIC has been implementing a programme of complex archivisation, digitalisation and sharing collections of recordings and photos related to the "Warsaw Autumn" International Festival of Contemporary Music – the most important contemporary music festival in Poland and one of the most important events of this type in Europe and in the world. Photographs documenting the festival over the past 60 years of its existence are a true national heritage, reflecting the history of Polish musical culture in this period, immortalizing its creators and presenting their most important works. The aim of our activities is to protect archival photos from inevitable degradation and to provide valuable materials to a wide audience, through the polmic.pl and muzar.polmic.pl websites, as well as through the monographic portals of selected composers.

A unique and priceless collection of photographs includes those from the International Festival of Contemporary Music "Warsaw Autumn" from the years 1977-1980, thus from the four consecutive editions of the festival (from XXI to XXV). Photographs available in the online gallery are primarily documentation of festival concerts and accompanying events in the lens of Jan Hausbrandt and Andrzej Glanda – photographers who collaborated with the "Warsaw Autumn" for many years.

The project was co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund.

CULTURESCAPES to, odbywający się w Szwajcarii, interdyscyplinarny festiwal poświęcony promowaniu dialogu międzykulturowego. Na jego tegoroczną edycję składa się 220 wydarzeń prezentujących szwajcarskiej publiczności polską kulturę i tożsamość. Wydarzenie potrwa od 5 października do 6 grudnia 2019.

W poprzednich odsłonach festiwalu szwajcarska publiczność miała okazję poznać kulturę Gruzji, Izraela, Ukrainy czy Japonii. W tym roku przyszła kolej na Polskę. 15. edycja CULTURESCAPES jest wyjątkowa, bo towarzyszy jej 100. rocznica nawiązania polsko-szwajcarskich relacji dyplomatycznych. Według kuratorów, Jurriaana Cooimana i Kateryny Botanovej, Polska kojarzona jest głównie z czołową rolą w transformacji demokratycznej i z ruchem Solidarności, który doprowadził do upadku muru berlińskiego. Dalej pozostaje ona jednak dla szwajcarskich uczestników kultury "terra incognita", co ma się zmienić za sprawą CULTURESCAPES.

Program CULTURESCAPES prezentuje szerokie spektrum polskiej muzyki, od średniowiecza aż po współczesność. Kluczowym muzycznym wydarzeniem festiwalu będzie premiera opery Król Roger w Konzert Theater Bern. Ważna jest również postać Fryderyka Chopina, którego twórczość odtworzą zarówno studenci i absolwenci szwajcarskich akademii muzycznych, jak i takie znakomitości jak Julianna Awdiejewa czy Ronald Brautigam. W programie znajdą się również polscy kompozytorzy i wykonawcy związani ze Szwajcarią, jak Karol Szymanowski i Witold Lutosławski. Najnowsza muzyka polska zostanie zaprezentowana w Gare du Nord Basel. Najważniejszym wydarzeniem będzie tu koncert symfoniczny Basel Sinfonietta, realizowany wspólnie z festiwalem Warszawska Jesień. Wśród polskich i zagranicznych solistów w koncertach festiwalowych wezmą udział Piotr Anderszewski, Ronald Brautigam, Krzysztof Chorzelski i Agata Zubel.

Więcej informacji na stronie: https://culture.pl/pl/wydarzenie/15-edycja-festiwalu-culturescapes 

Szczegółowy program Festiwalu: https://www.culturescapes.ch/polen