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On February 18, 2019 at 7.00 p.m. at the Polish Theatre in Poznań, artists from countries involved in both sides of the conflict, known as the Great War, which shook the world at the beginning of the 20th century, will meet to play a concert together.

Referring to events from 100 years ago, musicians from Germany, France, Japan and Poland will perform works by composers who lived and created in the years 1914-1918 and on whom, like on thousands of their countrymen, the war has left its painful mark. The concert will take place on February 18, 2019. This date is almost exactly on the 100th anniversary of the end of the Greater Poland Uprising (the Uprising ceased on February 16, 1919). The partner of the event is the Polish Theater in Poznań, where artists will perform on a large stage. The choice of place is not accidental and in this case it refers to the rich tradition from the turn of 19th and 20th century, that is combining theater evenings with concerts.

The musical idea behind this project is deeply rooted in history – each work describes a fragment of the history of the First World War. Sopranist Cécile Achille, violinist Airi Suzuki, pianist Hinrich Alpers and the Inter-Opera Orchestra conducted by Adam Domurat will present compositions by R.V. Williams, M. Ravel, G. Faure, R. Stephan, C. Debussy, F. Poulenc and K. Szymanowski.

More information at: https://www.wieniawski.pl/news/aktualnosci-towarzystwo-wieniawskiego/muzyka-czasu-wielkiej-wojny-18-02-2019-19-00.html 

Students of the piano classes at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music will perform a concert in memory of the University's Composers on February 18, 2019 at 7:00 p.m. in the FCUM Concert Hall.

The programme of the concert will include piano works of composers associated with the University of Music in Warsaw: Juliusz Wertheim, Stefan Kisielewski, Jan Ekier, Marian Sawa, Władysław Żeleński, as well as Roman Statkowski and Grażyna Bacewicz, whose 160th death and 110th birthday anniversaries are celebrated this year. The concert is organised under the artistic supervision of Dr Monika Quinn.

Free entrance cards are available from February 4 at the Chopin University Press (Mon.–Fri., 4:00-7:00 p.m.) and via www.umfc.bilety24.pl.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

We regret to inform that on 10 February 2019, professor Jerzy Stanisław Gołos, musicologist and organologist, has passed away at the age of 87.

In the years 1951-60 Jerzy Gołos studied Russian and Polish philology at Columbia University in New York and musicology at the New York University with P. Lang and G. Reese. In 1961 he obtained a PhD at the University of Warsaw based on the work "WTM tablature as a monument of organ music", written under the direction of H. Feicht. In 1971 was habilitated at the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1962-64 he taught Russian language and literature at the City University of New York, and in 1973-76 he was the head of the music iconography center and consultant at RILM. He studied liturgical songs of Russian Old Believers. In 1975 he conducted research and field recordings in Alaska.

He cooperated with the Monuments Documentation Center in Warsaw (currently the National Heritage Institute) as a consultant for historic musical instruments, he was also an expert in this area at the Ministry of Culture and Arts. For many years he lectured at the Department of Musicology at the University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski in Warsaw (in 1978-99 Catholic Theological Academy) and at the Warsaw Academy of Music (currently the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music), where he was the head of the Department of Theory of Music. In 1993 he obtained the title of professor.

He was an expert in the history of organ and organ music. He published a number of works devoted to this subject, including: Outline of the history of organ building in Poland (1966), Polish organ and organ music (1972), Terminologicaldictionary of monuments: Keyboard instruments (1972, together with Z. Kobus and B. Vogel) , A Guide to Old Music Instruments (1988), The Polish Organ (1992), Warsaw Organ, Vol. 1-3 (2003).

Death of Professor Gołos is yet another sad news for Polish musicology in recent times. May he rest in peace.

The New Music Orchestra conducted by Szymon Bywalc invites you to a chamber concert, which will take place on Sunday, February 17, 2019 at 6:00 p.m. at the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra headquarters in Katowice. The prgoramme will include works by Marcel Chyrzyński and Piotr Warzecha. Bartłomiej Duś, Rafał Łuc and Silesian Accordion Quintet will perform with the OMN.

Concerto for saxophone and sinfonietta "War Game" by Marcel Chyrzyński was premiered at the Krakow Composers' Festival in 2015. The composition lasting almost 20 minutes is extremely energetic and at times dramatic. Piotr Warzecha's Moments III presents the accordion sound palette by emphasizing the nuances of subsequent segments and the dynamic differences between them.

Almost in all the works of Toshio Hosokawa the soloist represents a human being, while the orchestra – nature and the universe – both external and internal. Voyage IV Extasis is intended for solo accordion and chamber ensemble. Hosokawa believes that the beginning of the accordion was a Japanese traditional shô instrument, a kind of oral harmonica in which the sound is produced by inhaling and exhaling air.

During the evening, we will alo listen to the composition of Seonjin Yun – laureate of the 3rd International Composers' Competition "Patri Patriae" for the piece dedicated to the memory of pope John Paul II. Rituale II was honored with the third prize and additionally with a prize awarded by the Artistic Director of the New Music Orchestra, in the form of performance of the composition as part of the cycle of concerts of the New Music Orchestra at the NOSPR in the season 2018/2019.

More information at: http://www.nospr.org.pl/pl/koncerty/1398/orkiestra-muzyki-nowej

On Sunday, February 17, 2019 at 6:00 p.m., a concert "Mystical Source" will take place at the National Forum of Music in Wrocław. We will listen to works written by the most famous contemporary choral composers performed by singers and instrumentalists under the direction of Agnieszka Franków-Żelazny.

Five Hebrew Love Songs series was created thanks to the cooperation of Eric Whitacre with his wife, who wrote lyrics for these songs in her native language. Each of the songs is capturing a moment of life. Ola Gjeilo in the Luminous Night of the Soul treated the piano part and the choir part in an equal way. O magnum misterium is a proposal of the Spanish composer and conductor Javier Busto, which is an original composition, but its text comes from the responsorial psalm of the Christmas Matutinum. Lux aeterna by Lauridsen presents a similar approach to lyrics – the text of the work is a medieval antiphon from masses for the deceased. The composer revives the old texts and combines them with completely new, fresh musical material.

The concert will also include choral works by outstanding Polish composers. Jacek Sykulski is a representative of the Poznań music community and a true enthusiast of choral works. He thinks that the human voice is a perfect instrument that can express more than a symphony orchestra. During the concert, we will hear his composition Pater Noster. Paweł Łukaszewski's Nunc dimittis is a musical interpretation of the song of Simeon, which, according to the old tale, he had to sing while holding the little Jesus in his hands (based on the Gospel of Luke).

Detailed information at: http://www.nfm.wroclaw.pl/en/component/nfmcalendar/event/6715