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The results of the first stage of the 60th Tadeusz Baird Young Composers Competition were announced on Fabruary 28, 2019.

The Tadeusz Baird Young Composers Competition (formerly called the Youth Competition of the Polish Composers' Union) is organized annually since 1958. Its aim is to give a start to young Polish composers and to encourage them to work and take independent initiative. Since 1990, the Main Prize, the Tadeusz Baird Award of $ 2,500 to be dedicated for further studies in composition is funded by Alina Sawicka-Baird, the wife of the deceased composer, Tadeusz Baird. The two second prizes and the award of distinction are financed by the Executive Board of the Polish Composers' Union. Since 2003, the competition consists of two stages. The works that have been qualified by the jury to the second stage are performed during a public concert, after which the final verdict is announced. The Main Prize of the 60th edition of the Competition was funded by Marta Ptaszyńska, an outstanding composer, a professor at the University of Chicago.

In the first stage, the jury composed of Eugeniusz Knapik (chairman), Krzysztof Baculewski, Miłosz Bembinow, Arkadiusz Kubica, and Hanna Kulenty, has chosen the following works: Magiczne kwadraty (emblem Trójkąt), Une saison dans rêve (emblem Rimarth), Śpiew kresu dnia (emblem Kasztan 12), Sublimacje (TBQ emblem), String Quartet Shapes (Maple leave emblem).

The concert presenting selected works, after which the results will be announced, will take place on June 25, 2019 at 6.00 p.m. at the PWM Editions at 8 Fredry Street in Warsaw. The performer of the concert will be the String Quartet Polonika composed of Paulina Kusa (I violin), Anna Szalińska-Zaziębło (II violin), Magdalena Małecka-Wippich (viola), and Olga Łosakiewicz-Marcyniak (cello).

The Bolshoi’s sumptuous staging with its luxurious sets and costumes, over a hundred dancers and a lot of ballet variations at the highest level. The Sleeping Beauty is a spectacle worthy of the Tsar's court for which it was created. On March 10, 2019 at 4.00 p.m., you can watch the ballet at the Kino Praha cinema in Warsaw.

The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet in a prologue and three acts, premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1890. The original scenario was conceived by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, and is based on Charles Perrault's La Belle au bois dormant. The choreographer of the original production was Marius Petipa. The music was written by Pyotr Tchaikovsky strictly according to the instructions and choreographic plan of Petipa. The work has become one of the classical repertoire's most famous ballets.

In 1963, the Moscow Bolshoi Theater presented The Sleeping Beauty in the version of Yuri Grigorovich (one of the leading choreographers of Bolshoi), which was based on the original choreography of Petipa. In 2011, Grigorowicz revised the staging: he changed the set design and costumes, and moved the action to the nineteenth-century manor of imperial Russia. The ballet, starring Olga Smirnov as the Princess Aurora and Siemion Chudin as Prince Desiré, was broadcast live in HD on January 22, 2017. The retransmission of this broadcast will be screened at cinemas worldwide.

The list of places in Poland, where you can watch broadcasts from the Bolshoi Theater, is available here.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information at: http://www.kinopraha.pl

On March 9, 2019 at 6:00 p.m. in the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall in Katowice, the Silesian Quartet, Joanna Freszel and Paweł Wakarecy will present works by Mieczysław Weinberg and Ludomir Różycki.

Three Palms, Op. 120 (1977) by Mieczysław Weinberg is a cycle of songs for soprano and string quartet to the words of Mikhail Lermontov. In the poem of the romantic poet, palms growing in the Arabian Desert complain to God of their uselessness. This Romantic Weltschmerz found personal resonance in Wajnberg's work. The unusual combination of a soprano and string quartet is probably modeled on the Second String Quartet, Op. 10 (1908) by Arnold Schönberg.

Ludomir Różycki, a contemporary of Karol Szymanowski, also belonged to the "Young Poland" group. He socialized with the most prominent figures of artistic and philosophical bohemia of Polish Modernism, and his works were recognised not only in Poland: the opera Eros and Psyche (1916) was staged in theaters across Europe. His Piano quintet in C minor, Op. 35, written in the late Romantic style, combines German (Brahms, Reger) and French inspirations (Franck, Fauré).

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Information on tickets at: http://www.nospr.org.pl/pl/koncerty/1404/kwartet-slaski-joanna-freszel-pawe-wakarecy-wajnberg-w-polsce 

On March 9, 2019 at 7:00 p.m. in the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of the Polish Radio in Warsaw, the Jerzy Semkow Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra and Klaudiusz Baran, the rector of the Fryderyk Chopin Warsaw University of Music, will perform wroks by Szabelski, Riepnikow, Prokofiev.

Finished in 1951, Symphony No. 7, a four-part composition which is traditional in its form, proved to be Prokofiev’s last work. It was created in the dark times of Stalinism, when the composer was in disgrace of the oppressive government. The work’s premiere was the composer’s last concert, as he died on the exact same day as the murderous Soviet dictator, which made Prokofiev’s death and funeral almost unnoticed… Undeservedly, Opus ultimum, a beautiful and moving piece, has gained less popularity than his other symphonies.

Albin Repnikov is one of the most popular accordionists – the master of an instrument that has always been particularly beloved in Russia. Many pieces from his interesting and abundant repertoire belong to the ‘canon’ and are played at almost every competition. Accordion Concerto No. 3, showing composer's great imagination and the rich tones of accordion, will be performed by one of the most notable Polish virtuosos: Klaudiusz Baran, currently the rector of the Fryderyk Chopin Warsaw University of Music.

Another work to be recalled is Bolesław Szabelski’s Etude for orchestra – a relatively unknown, yet interesting piece composed in 1938 when Szabelski worked in a newly established conservatoire of Katowice (after a period during the war when he fought in the Home Army, he continued to work as a teacher). Katowice was also the city where the work’s premiere was hosted. The same school (currently known as Academy of Music) was attended by Maciej Tomasiewicz – formerly associated with Archetti Chamber Orchestra – who will conduct the concert. His artistic achievements include performances with a variety of important ensembles in Poland and abroad.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

More information at: http://sinfoniaiuventus.pl/ 

On March 8, 2019 at 7.00 p.m., Jerzy Przeździecki and Andrzej Karałow will perform at the Heavens of Copernicus Planetarium in Warsaw.

An improvised spontaneous story that guides the listener through stylistically diverse moments which attempt to create their own world. A world in which color is a dominant form-generating element of a common musical language. Wandering through the internal soundscapes of instruments such as the Buchla Music Easel synthesizer, modular synthesizer, piano or DSI Prophet 6, artists take the challenge to map these seemingly different musical lands and merge them into a single, organic whole.

Andrzej Karałow is a pianist and composer. He lectures at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw at the Department of Composition, Conducting and Theory of Music and pursue doctoral studies in composition under the guidance of Professor Aleksander Kościów. He graduated with honors from the FCUM in the piano class of Professor Bronisława Kawalla and in the composition class of Professor Stanisław Moryto. In 2017, he received Magna Cum Laude distinction at his alma mater. He is a laureate of many Polish and international piano and composing competitions. In 2018/19, he became a mentor in the London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers Programme. In March 2018, he released his first original album Wir recorded in a duet with Jerzy Przeździecki, a producer of electronics, who performed at the "Warsaw Autumn" and at the largest electronic music festivals.

More information at: http://www.niebokopernika.pl/repertuar/repertoire/detail/cosmic-live-electronic-jerzy-przezdziecki-i-andrzej-karalow/