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The Annual Awards of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage were granted to Polish composers

During the ceremonial gala at the National Theater in Warsaw on 12 June 2019, the Minister of Culture and National Heirtage, Professor Piotr Gliński, awarded creators, animators and patrons whose activity notably contributes to the development, dissemination and protection of culture. The prizes were awarded in seventeen categories.

The Annual Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage is granted since 1997 to artists, creators and culture animators in acknowledgement of their total achievements or for exceptional achievements in a given year in the field they represent. This prestigious award allows the Minister of Culture and National Heritage to highlight the most important trends and phenomena in Polish culture by honoring people who create and represent them. The National Center for Culture is responsible for organizing the annual Awards Gala of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.

This year, the distinctions of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in the field of "Music" were given to two Polish musicians: Agata Zubel – composer and vocalist, lecturer at the Academy of Music in Wrocław, regular member of the Polish Composers' Union, and Piotr Moss – a laureate of many Polish and French awards and honorable mentions, who lives and works in Paris, a member of the Polish Composers' Union since 1977.

The Honorary Award of the Polish Composers' Union for Andrea Brzoza

On 12 June 2019 the Presidium of the Main Board of the Polish Composers' Union decided to award the second Honorary Award of the Polish Composrs' Union this year. The winner is Mrs. Andrea Brzoza.

Andrea Brzoza was born in Lobito, Angola. In 1962, together with her parents (of Austrian descent) she moved to Austria and after a year to Portugal. In 1975, she began studying at the English and Journalism Department at the University of Vienna. She moved to Poland in 1977. She was employed at the Austrian embassy, in the academic year 1977/ 1978 she worked as a Portuguese language teacher at the University of Warsaw. From autumn 1978, she works at the Austrian Cultural Forum (Institute of Austrian Culture). It is an agency of the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, whose task consists of the cultural and scientific dialogue with artists and scientists of each particular host country. Andrea Brzoza is responsible for music projects.

The Honorary Award of the Polish Composers' Union was granted to Andrea Brzoza for outstanding contribution to building cultural ties between Poland and Austria.

The award ceremony will take place during the 62nd International Festival of Contemporary Music "Warsaw Autumn" at the Polish Composers' Union office in the Old Town Market Square.

Łódź | Bacewicz International Summer Music Academy

Bacewicz International Summer Music Academy is a series master classes designed for musicians who want to broaden their knowledge and develop their skills in piano playing. During the first edition of the courses in Poland, the most outstanding pianists and professors of our time will share their experience with the participants.

The organizers of BISMA are Stretto Music Foundation and the Academy of Music in Łódź. The cyclical nature of the courses should contribute to the popularization of Grażyna Bacewicz's work, the promotion of the Academy of Music and the city of Łódź not only in the country, but also internationally. In this piano edition, the organizers invited the lecturers from two prestigious universities – the Royal College of Music in London and the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg. The master classes will be led by professors Dmitri Alexeev and Jacques Rouvier and artists of the younger generation: Ilya Maximov and Jianing Kong.

The courses will take place between 19-26 August 2019 in the buildings of the Music Academy in Łódź. BISMA has planned five concerts, including one devoted to Grażyna Bacewicz (combined with a lecture). The courses, under the patronage of the composer, will culminate in a gala concert during which the International Grażyna Bacewicz Prize will be awarded to the best participant.

The deadline for submissions is 14 June 2019. Registration fee is 60 € (participants from Poland are exempt from the entry fee). The cost of participation in the course: 490 €.

The director of BISMA is pianist Julia Kociuban.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Detailed information available at the BISMA official webstie: www.bisma.pl

Poznań | End of the artistic season 2018/2019

The last concert of the artistic season 2018/2019 at the Poznań Philharmonic will take place on Friday, 14 June 2019 at 7pm in the Adam Mickiewicz University Hall.

The soloist of the evening will be the artist-resident of the Poznań Philharmonic during the passing season – Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud. The Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra will be led by their director – conductor Marek Pijarowski.

The evening will start with a thrilling Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47 by Jean Sibelius, which is a real challenge for the greatest violinists. Then, we will listen to the excellent Partita for Large Symphony Orchestra by Grażyna Bacewicz. The finale will feature the mystical Poem of Ecstasy (Symphony No. 4), Op. 54 by Alexander Scriabin. The concert will be hosted by Jakub Kasperski.

More information at: https://filharmoniapoznanska.pl/

Kielce | End of the concert season at the Oskar Kolberg Philharmonic

On 14 June 2019 at 7pm the Symphony Orchestra of the Oskar Kolberg Świętokrzyska Philharmonic in Kielce will perform for the last time this season.

The evening will start with Ludomir Różycki's Mona Lisa Gioconda – a symphonic prelude composed in the late Romantic style, which will be presented by the Symphony Orchestra of the Świętokrzyska Philharmonic under the baton of the director of this institution, Jacek Rogala. In the interpretation of Maria Sławek, a young violinist with great musical sensitivity and very good technique, we will listen to the Spanish Symphony in D minor by Édouard Lalo. The concert will end with Ignacy Dobrzyński's Symphony in B flat major.

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://filharmonia.kielce.pl/

Opole | End of the 67th artistic season

The last concert of the 67th artistic season of the Opole Philharmonic will take place on 14 June 2019 at 7pm. The programme will include music of Stanisław Moniuszko, Emil Młynarski and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

The Symphonic Orchestra of the Opole Philharmonic will perform under the direction of Przemysław Neumann. The evening will start with Stanisław Moniuszko's Fairy Tale Fantastic Overture of 1848, written while the composer was living in Vilnius. Then we will listen to Emil Młynarski's Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Major Op. 16, which was premiere in 1920 by a legendary violinist Paweł Kochański. During the June concert the soloist will be Jakub Jakowicz. The 67th artistic season of the Opole Philharmonic will be closed by Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 in E minor.

More information at: https://filharmonia.opole.pl/wydarzenia/strefa-gwiazd-7/

Zielona Góra | 50th anniversary of artistic work of Czesław Grabowski

The concert on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of artistic work of the Director of the Zielona Góra Philharmonic – Czesław Grabowski – will take place on 14 June 2019 at 7pm.

The anniversary concert, which will take place as part of the Festival of the Lubuskie Province, symbolically refers to the activities of a distinguished Polish conductor, composer and teacher, a professor of the conducting class at the Academy of Art in Szczecin.

The programme will feature Ludwig van Beethoven's Triple Concerto in C major for violin, cello and piano performed by three eminent Polish soloists, with whom the Maestro has been collaborating for many years: Edward Zienkowski, Tomasz Strahl and Beata Bilińska. Beethoven's music is also a symbolic choice as it referrs to the idea of unity, which for a number of years was a spiritus movens of the International Festival of Music Days on the Oder.

During the concert, Czesław Grabowski will also perform his own compositions, presenting his individual, personal attitude towards the aesthetics of contemporary music. We will listen to Intrada chamber orchestra performed by the musicians of the Symphony Orchestra of the Zielona Góra Philharmonic.

Information on tickets at: http://filharmoniazg.pl/events/50-lat-pracy-artystycznej-czeslawa-grabowskiego/

Szczecin | End of the season at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic

The last concert of the artistic season 2018/2019 at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin will take place on 14 June 2019 at 7:00pm featuring works by Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner and Mieczysław Karłowicz.

The last Polish Romantic – if we look both at his work and life – was Mieczysław Karłowicz. The 32-year-old composer, who died tragically in an avalanche in the Tatra Mountains, left a relatively small number of works. One of his early pieces is Bianca da Molena Op. 6 – music for the drama White dove by Józef Nowiński. A special place in Karłowicz's oeuvre is occupied by six symphonic poems. The first piece in this genre, Returning Waves Op. 9, was written after the death of his father and sister. According to Karłowicz, the composition is to reflect the changing moods of a man depressed by his fate.

Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, another representative of the late Romantic period, have a similar tone. Works of Richard Wagner are the quintessence of German Romanticism in music. The reformer of opera and the creator of musical drama in his stage works eagerly reached for German mythology and medieval legends. In the final of the concert, the Szczecin Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Rune Bergmann will perform the Overture to the Wagner's opera The Mastersingers of Nuremburg.

More information at: https://filharmonia.szczecin.pl/pl

„Stabat Mater” Piotra Gryski – premiera zagraniczna

19 czerwca 2019 roku o godz. 19:00 w Kościele St. Marienkirche w Ueckermünde odbędzie się zagraniczna premiera ukończonego w lutym tego roku dzieła dra Piotra Gryski Stabat Mater.

Stabat Mater skomponowane jest na chór dziecięcy, sopran, alt, organy oraz zespół instrumentalny. Utwór zaprezentują Chór Dziecięcy Zachodniopomorskiego Uniwersytetu Technologicznego DON DIRI DON, Chór Parafii Ueckermünde-Liepgarten i Zespół instrumentalny „Musica” pod dyrekcją prof. dr hab. Dariusza Dyczewskiego, rektora Akademii Sztuki w Szczecinie. W roli solistów wystąpią: dr hab. Sylwia Burnicka-Kalischewska, prof. nadzw. AS (sopran), Aleksandra Wojtachnia (mezzosopran) i Anke Schulz (organy).

Poza Stabat Mater zespół instrumentalny „Musica” wykona fragmenty utworu J.S. Bacha Der Kunst der Fuge. Słowo wiążące wygłosi emerytowana burmistrz Miasta Ueckermünde Heidi Michaelis.

Organizatorem koncertu, który wsparło Miasto Ueckermünde, jest Musikverein „BEL CANTO Ueckermünde” e. V. oraz Kirchengemeinde Ueckermünde-Liepgarten.