In January 2025, the USC Polish Music Center entered its fortieth year of operations on the USC campus in Los Angeles. What began as the Polish Music Reference Center in one small basement room of USC’s Doheny Library in 1985 has since become an internationally recognized institution with worldwide reach located in USC’s Stonier Hall….Continue Reading PMC at 40!
At the end of March, audiences will hear the premiere of a work that was created 90 years ago by Józef Koffler, Poland’s first dodecophonist composer whose life and career were cut short by the Nazis. Details of Koffler’s largely unknown oeuvre are richly discussed in the PMC’s Polish Music History Series No. 8, Józef…Continue Reading Premiere of Lost Work by Koffler: String Qtet Op. 20
It is the time of year when we reach out to the Friends of the USC Polish Music Center, to celebrate our accomplishments of the last year and ask you to support us into the next. Since our last report, there have been many exciting developments at the PMC, and we’d like to take this…Continue Reading Year-in-Review: PMC in 2024
This month we received several wonderful publications from good friends of the Polish Music Center. Dr. Paweł Freus, Senior Research Specialist from Muzeum Ghetta Warszawskiego (The Warsaw Ghetto Museum) gifted us with 4 books pertaining to the history of Jewish communities in Poland. These publications include: In addition to these publications, Tomasz Wiśniewski from POLONICA…Continue Reading PMC Gifts: November 2024
Thanks to the ongoing support of the Head Office of the State Archives (NDAP) in Warsaw, we recently received a large shipment of archival-grade boxes and folders, purchased by NDAP and produced for us by the Beskid Plus Company. These materials are vital to our preservation work, including the Zygmunt and Luisa Stojowski Collection, which…Continue Reading Preserving Collections with Support from State Archives in Warsaw
By Marek Zebrowski Warsaw’s Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych [Central Archives of Historical Records], more popularly known by its acronym AGAD, has been a PMC partner for over a decade as a part of our collaboration with the Head Office of the Polish National Archives (NDAP). As a result, several archivists and conservation experts have come…Continue Reading Collaboration with AGAD: A String of Miracles…
From left: Dr. Paweł Pietrzyk, prof. Alicja Jagielska-Burduk, and dir. Marek Zebrowski By Marek Zebrowski Those readers who have frequented the PMC Newsletter lately will know that we have been celebrating an important honor recently bestowed by the Polish UNESCO Committee upon the PMC’s Henryk Wars/Henry Vars Manuscript Collection—these articles can be found at “UNESCO…Continue Reading PMC, Wars & UNESCO: Finis Coronat Opus
Our good colleagues at the Association of Polish Chamber Musicians (SPMK) and the Villa Decius in Kraków are collaborating on the series “Summer Concerts of the Piano Cooperative,” which will take place on Sundays in June (23rd) and August (11th and 25th). The programs of these free concerts celebrate composers’ anniversaries as well as world…Continue Reading Mołodyńska-Wheeler Premiere & Other SPMK Concerts at Villa Decius
On June 26 at the Belweder—the Presidential Palace in Warsaw—the 2024 UNESCO Pamięć Świata/Memory of the World ceremony will take place. The palace’s elegant ballroom will be filled to capacity with distinguished guests, among them Marek Zebrowski, representing the USC Polish Music Center and Dennis Mitchell, grandson of Henryk Wars (1902-1977). Poland’s President, Andrzej Duda,…Continue Reading UNESCO Honors PMC Archives
Our longtime collaborator, pianist Marek Szlezer, has released a video of an excellent performance of Zygmunt Stojowski’s Chant d’amour. This sparkling chamber work is one of the many treasures contained in the PMC’s Zygmunt and Luisa Stojowski Collection, which Szlezer has researched extensively for several publications, performances and other recordings….Continue Reading Szlezer Brings Stojowski to YouTube