On Tuesday, June 18, President Bronisław Komorowski installed Małgorzata Omilanowska as Poland’s new Minister of Culture and National Heritage. Omilanowska replaces outgoing Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski, who has served in the post since November of 2007 but was recently elected to a seat in the European Parliament. According to the external service of Polish Radio: Former…Continue Reading Poland’s New Minister Of Culture
From June 14-15, Warsaw’s Nowy Teatr hosted the 3rd ‘Instalakcje’ Festival of musical installations, curated by composers Wojciech Blecharz and Paweł Mykietyn. The theme of this year’s Festival is the body and its metaphor in music. Held on June 14 at 8:00, the inaugural concert of the 2014 Festival was comprised entirely of World Premieres,…Continue Reading World Premieres at the Instalakcje Festival
The World Premiere of Nikola Kołodziejczyk’s Concerto brzeziński for trumpet, two typewriters, sewing machine, brass quartet, trombone, vocals, and jazz trio will take place on July 6 during the ‘Kolory Polski’ Festival. The composition was commissioned by the Łódź Philharmonic Orchestra, who are the organizers of the Festival, and the town of Brzeziny, where the…Continue Reading Kołodziejczyk World Premiere In Brzeziny
On June 20, the Deutsche Oper Berlin gave the World Premiere of two chamber operas by young Polish composer Dariusz Przybylski: Fall (2013) and Musical Land (2013). The June 20th program, which also featured new chamber operas by Birke J. Bertelsmeier, was called LoveAffairs and was given repeat performances on June 21 and 24-27. These…Continue Reading Przybylski World Premiere In Berlin
The Passenger—Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s uncompromising 1968 opera about the Holocaust, set to a libretto by Alexander Medvedev and based on the book The Passenger by Polish writer and concentration camp survivor Zofia Posmysz—will have its New York premiere July 10, 12, and 13, in a co-production with Lincoln Center Festival and Park Avenue Armory. The Houston…Continue Reading Weinberg & Posmysz At Lincoln Center
“Felder’s rapturous, emotionally charged playing of more than a dozen pieces by Chopin is the show’s most glorious element…Music was Chopin’s solace. And when Felder sits down to play the composer springs to life in a way that says more about the soul of this quintessential Romantic than any words can convey.” —Chicago Sun-Times Hershey…Continue Reading ‘Monsieur Chopin’ in Berkeley
In 2015, the Lira Ensemble will celebrate its 50th Anniversary. Lira began as a small group of talented young women singers, but today the Lira Ensemble includes a symphony orchestra and a dance troupe as well as the Lira Singers, based at Loyola University Chicago as artist-in-residence since 1995. Over nearly 50 years, the Lira Ensemble…Continue Reading Lira Ensemble Celebrates 50 Years
PWM’s Polish contemporary music magazine Quarta publishes news, interviews, essays and reviews concerning Polish composers and music. Originally published as two separate language editions—Quarta and Kwarta—content is now published in English and Polish on the same electronic pages. Content of this quarterly magazine is freely accessible in PDF format. The latest installments of Quarta are…Continue Reading New Edition Of PWM’s Quarta/Kwarta
Polish composer and 2011 Paderewski Lecturer Paweł Łukaszewski was granted the 2014 Hector Berlioz Prize of the prestigious Orphées d’Or at a ceremony on June 30 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The Orphées d’Or are the annual Grand Prizes given out by the Academie du Disque Lyrique, and the Hector Berlioz Prize category…Continue Reading Paweł Łukaszewski Wins Orphée d’Or
The World Première of the new opera by Eugeniusz Knapik will be held on June 25 in the Teatr Wielki -Opera Narodowa [Grand Theater – National Opera] in Warsaw as a part of the Terytoria series. With a libretto by Krzysztof Koehler based on Herman Melville’s novel, Knapik’s Moby Dick will be directed by Barbara…Continue Reading Knapik Opera Premiere