The 2023-2024 concert season is filled with special anniversary performances of several composers who recently celebrated their eightieth birthdays. Last summer, it was Marta Ptaszyńska and Krzysztof Meyer who turned eighty, and last October it was Elżbieta Sikora’s turn to pass this important milestone.
Stanisław Suchora and his agency, Sonora Music, have done a wonderful job of lining up plenty of concerts in many European cities with a great variety of Elżbieta Sikora’s music. The 2024 performances opened with a retrospective of Sikora’s electronic works—including Francis Dhomont, Espace (1989), Janek Wiśniewski, decembre, Pologne (1982), AxeRouge (2011), Grain de sable (2002), Rouge d’été (2002), and Trois tunnels et un arrêt (2017)—on January 31at L’Espace Senghor in Brussels.
On February 2, Sikora’s Norwid’Ellipse was heard at the Longueur d’ondes Festival in Brest, France. Only two days later, on February 11 La Tête d’Orphée II was presented at the Plein Theater in Amsterdam. The same work will also be heard at the Estonian Centre of Contemporary Music in Tallin on February 17.
The Zielona Góra Philharmonic will present Sikora’s Overture for Orchestra on March 1 and a week later, March 8, La Tête d’Orphée II is scheduled at the Muzeum Narodowe in Kraków. Norwid’Elipsa (this time with the Polish version of the title) will get another hearing this spring at the Chopin Music University in Warsaw on April 6. One more Sikora concert will take place in April, as part of the Schöneberger Orgelzyklus on April 12.
Moving on to spring’s full blossom, two more Sikora concerts are planned in adopted home of Paris. Her electronic works entitled Flashback and Axe rouge V will be heard on May 12 at the Maison de la Radio. The following month in the same iconic French Radio building, the so-called “Maison ronde” near the Eiffel Tower, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France will present the premiere of a new version of Sikora’s Sonosphère IV on June 19 during the Festival Manifeste IRCAM.
Read more about Sikora’s recent prestigious awards and nominations here.
[Sources: press release, sonoramusic.eu]