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The Chamber Music Department of the Academy of Music in Kraków invites you on 17-28 October 2020 to the 4th International Piano Duo Festival "Duettissimo!".

This international festival is a unique event devoted solely and exclusively to music for piano duo. Participation of world-renowned artists confirms its growing importance on a global scale. The festival aims at reintroducing piano duo to pianists and to concert life as well as popularizing piano duo repertoire. The artistic director of the project is Bartłomiej Kominek, PhD Habil. – head of the Department of Chamber Music.

The "Duettissimo" Festival 2020 will take place in a limited form and will be partially transferred to the digital space. The group of performers will traditionally include both students of the Academy of Music in Kraków and its lecturers, as well as winners of international piano duo competitions. The Festival will host one of the best duets of the Slovak Republic – Jordana Palovičová and Zuzana Biščáková. The inaugural concert will be held under the honorary patronage of the Consul of the Slovak Republic in Krakow. The programme will also feature Polish music, including works by Juliusz Zarębski and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki.

Admission to festival concerts is free!

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centr POLMIC.

Full programme is available at: https://www.amuz.krakow.pl/duettissimo/ 

The Organ and Chamber Music Festival will be held on 16-18 October 2020 as part of the 1st Organ Music Days in Sanok, initiated by Łukasz Kot – chairman of the Pro Artis Association based in Sanok. The aim of the festival is to popularize organ and chamber music in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship and to present works of early and contemporary composers.

The event will feature famous artists from different parts of Poland: organists Piotr Rojek, artistic director of the Festival (Wrocław), Roman Perucki (Gdańsk), Henryk Jan Botor (Tychy – Kraków), flautists Łukasz Długosz and Agata Kielar-Długosz (Gdańsk). The programme will include works by Jakub Sowa, Feliks Nowowiejski, Henryk Jan Botor, as well as Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Friedrich Handel, Henri Mull, Felix Mendelssohn, Gabriel Fauré, Louis Vierny. We will also hear organ improvisations on themes suggested by the audience.

Free concerts will take place in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Sanok. In addition, Improvisation Master Course for students of secondary music schools will be held at the Wanda Kossakowa Primary and Secondary State Music School in Sanok.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

The second edition of the Stanisław Moniuszko International Competition of Polish Music will be held on 11-18 September 2021 at the Artur Malawski Podkarpacka Philharmonic in Rzeszów. Participants will compete for a prize pool of over EUR 80,000 in two categories: piano and chamber ensembles. The competition is organized by the Institute of Music and Dance, and the awards are sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sport.

The primary objective of the Stanisław Moniuszko International Competition of Polish Music in Rzeszów is to promote Polish music worldwide and disseminate the wonderful legacy of Stanisław Moniuszko and other excellent Polish composers amongst a wide spectrum of listeners. The Competition promotes Polish music written in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially those works which have been forgotten or have been less popular in concert practice.

The Competition accepts instrumental musicians applying as soloists or chamber ensembles (from two to twelve musicians). There are no age or citizenship restrictions for the participants. The application process will start within a few weeks and will end on 14 May 2021. The preliminary round for the candidates from Poland will be held in Warsaw; its exact dates, venues and rules will be announced separately. Jury for each category of the Competition will consist of distinguished Polish and foreign musical artists and musical personalities.

The participants will present works written by 56 Polish composers, who were mostly active in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The auditions for the Competition will take place at the Artur Malawski Podkarpacka Philharmonic Hall in Rzeszów between 11 and 18 September 2021. The Prize Winners Concert, along with the awards ceremony, will be held at the Podkarpacka Philharmonic Hall on 18 September 2021. The Concert will be repeated on 20 September 2021 at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw.

More information is availble on the competition website: www.konkursmuzykipolskiej.pl 

On 30 September, the call for applications for the International Composition Contest for Wind Orchestra Warsaw Wind Ensemble Composition Contest 2020 was closed. From almost 50 applications, the jury selected seven laureates and distinguished five compositions.

The subject of the first edition of the composition competition, organized by PWM Edition together with the Warsaw Wind Music Association, was to write a premiere composition for a concert wind orchestra. 31 works in the international category and 18 compositions sent by Polish composers qualified for the competition.

Cateogry I (International): Jared Destro Madonna of the Lilies (Great Britain) – I Place, Jiazi Shang Double Third Festival (China) – II Place, Joshua Reed Aurora (Great Britain) – III Place; Frank J. Cogollos Martínez Sea Winds (Spain) and Brian Field Ecce, reges deiectos! (USA) – distinctions.

Category II (Polish): Marcin Molski AA20 – I Place, Krzysztof Falkowski Warsaw Wind – II Place, Karol Pyka Zawrat and Wojciech Zwierniak Szumbrass – II Place (ex aequo); Tomasz Labuń Tchnienie wolności, Piotr Sarnecki Joke and Bartłomiej Szułakiewicz Weselisko – distinctions.

The winning compositions will be published this year by PWM Edition in the Biblioteka Orkiestr Dętych (The Wind Orchestras Library) series. Their authors will also receive cash prizes. The winners of three places in both categories will also receive material prizes funded by PWM Edition, diplomas and statuettes. All compositions will be perform during the Final Gala. The event, previously planned for 28 November, has been postponed to next year. The awarded compositions will be performed in the Ursynów District Cultural Centre in Warsaw by the Warsaw University of Life Sciences Representative Orchestra under the baton of Chris David Westover and the Concert Orchestra of the Representative Artistic Ensemble of the Polish Army Forces, conducted by Marcin Ślązak.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information about the competition: http://www.warsawwinds.pl 

The premiere of Krzysztof Herdzin's Te Deum in memory of St. John Paul II will take place on 16 October 2020 at 7:00 p.m. at the Pomeranian Philharmonic in Bydgoszcz. The concert will be broadcast on the Philharmonic's YouTube channel.

Te Deum by Krzysztof Herdzin was commissioned by the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Paul II. As the composer points out: "In a world reigned by the lack of ideology, it is important for me to return to the Sacred, to the roots and traditions, absolute love for people and compassion. I divided the work into three parts and intended it for a large group of performers: two soloists, a choir and a symphony orchestra. The elevated and solemn fragments are interspersed with reflective and meditative ones. Please treat these sounds as my thanks for the presence of John Paul II in our lives”. The world premiere of the work will be performed by the Pomeranian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, soloists Iwona Hossa and Adam Zdunikowski, and the Polish Chamber Choir.

In addition, the concert will feature two more works by Krzysztof Herdzin. Hymn about St. Albert Chmielowski comes from the composer's ninth album Symphonicum (2010), which was nominated to the Fryderyk 2011 award in the Album of the Year – Contemporary Music category. Three Crowns were premiered by the legendary orchestra The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields at a concert conducted by the composer at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw (2015). The work was included in the album Suite on Polish Themes (2016).

More information at: http://www.filharmonia.bydgoszcz.pl/