The 11th “Music on the Heights” International Chamber Music Festival, organized by the Mieczysław Karłowicz Association in Zakopane, will be held from 7-14 September 2019. The festival’s name refers both to the Tatra Mountains which lie next to Zakopane, the resort town where the festival is held, and is also a reference to the high quality of music performed. The Tatras were inspiring to many of Poland’s great composers of the twentieth century, such as Mieczysław Karlowicz, Karol Szymanowski, Henryk Mikołaj Gorecki and Wojciech Kilar, and thanks to them Zakopane developed into a major center of national culture in the interwar and post-war period. To encourage the continuation of this artistic legacy, the Mieczysław Karłowicz Association in Zakopane has successfully attracted many prominent composers to attend and musicians to perform, some of them international stars.
The 2019 festival will be inaugurated by Apollon Musagète Quartet performing string quartets by Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert, as well as In te Domine speravi by Wacław of Szamotuły. On 8 September, Les Femmes will present “Polish Landscape,” featuring songs by Chopin, Nowowiejski, Szymanowski and Karłowicz (see more about this album premiere here). The “Moniuszko & Cornelius” project, a selection of songs and piano works by Stanisław Moniuszko, as well as new piano and vocal works by Thomas Cornelius, will be presented the next day. The final concert on 14 September will include Concerto No. 2 for cello and symphony orchestra by Paweł Mykietyn in the interpretation of cellist Marcin Zdunik and the Beethoven Academy Orchestra under the direction of Jean-Luc Tingaud.
[Sources: polmic.pl, muzykanaszczytach.com]