The Musica Electronica Nova festival was held from May 17-25, 2019. As the festival’s artistic director Pierre Jodlowski explains, this year’s theme is “Signs:”

Because humanity has organized itself into societies, signs occupy a very important place in our lives: from prehistoric images to the banners of the Middle Ages, from signs spreading in the streets to the abundance of digital signals. What do these signs say about ourselves? What role do they play in the space of music, whose language has been based on specific signs and notations? What are the trajectories that contemporary composers indicate to us? Where do they want to lead us?”

The festival opened with a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey accompanied by live music performed by the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic and the NFM Choir. This year, the interdisciplinary program included premieres of commissions such as are there hidden figures? for string quartet, electronics and video by Monika Szpyrka, Concerto for piano and computer by Sławomir Kupczak and Lightning by Katarzyna Bem. The “Reverse Simultaneous” concert on May 20 featured premieres by composers of the Wrocław Branch of the Polish Composers’ Union (Ryszard Osada, Adam Porębski, Mateusz Ryczek, Rafal Augustyn, Katarzyna Dziewiątkowska, Ryszard Klisowski, and Adrian Foltyn) with improvising violinist Anna Zielińska. Several “Acousma Forums” presented profiles of young composers from Italy, Poland and Mexico, as well as a special session on May 19 dedicated to Elżbieta Sikora, the former artistic director of the festival. Musica Electronica Nova also includes short meetings with composers, during which there will be an opportunity to talk about their daily work.

For the full program and more information, visit nfm.wroclaw.pl.

[Source: polmic.pl]