Nature, water, wilderness / Meditation music

New Music Orchestra / Journeys into the unknown

The contemporary music concert cycle presented by the OMN Ensemble is a chance to immerse oneself in a world of new sounds and compositions. Established in 1996, for nearly three decades the Ensemble has been presenting contemporary works, always following its mission of exploring and promoting those of particular significance for Polish and global musical culture. Their experimental performances lead audiences through the complexity, diversity, ambiguity and polyphonicity of contemporary music. Every year, tens of thousands of new pieces of music are composed. Among those, one can find very good and excellent works, or even works of pure genius. The OMN Ensemble, working first under the baton of its founder, Aleksander Lasoń, and since 2006 under the artistic directorship of the conductor Szymon Bywalec, constantly turns even the most challenging scores into performances. Every concert becomes a journey into the unknown, filled with risk and discovery of new modes of collaboration and creation. These explorations open for the listener a path to a deeper understanding of contemporary music. Alexandra KozowiczConcert duration: approximately 70 minutes

Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej / Minimal music / Journeys into the unknown

Overture – solo concerto – symphony. Every melomaniac has probably participated in an evening composed in this manner at least once. Nevertheless, some of them are certainly unaware of their indebtedness to Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in this area. It was he who proposed the simple pattern in 1835, when he became music director of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and his fame soon helped it to become accepted throughout Europe. Does it, however, remain effective to this day – after Anton Webern’s aphorisms, Morton Feldman’s six-hour string concerto and Zygmunt Krauze’s infinite sonic installations?History shows that there are forms which easily accept content and functions typical for highly varied eras, thus standing the test of time brilliantly. One of those is the literary novel, known as early as in ancient Rome, another one being… the contemporary technique of tying shoelaces, patented five years after the “Mendelssohnian concert”. Since all the three heroes of our concert – Lutosławski, Ligeti and Reich – enjoyed musical explorations based on well-established solutions, it is likely that they would not feel offended at such an attempt at classicising their work.Let us, then, begin with an overture, but one that replaces the decisiveness and clarity characteristic for the genre with a pinch of uncertainty and instability so typical for mature Lutosławski. After the Venetian games comes the time for Ligeti’s Piano concerto, a feat of virtuosity, but one with West-African roots. Eventually, there is Reich’s symphony of the big city, reconciling the mechanical rhythms and hectic noises of New York with melodies and harmonies that often reach back as far as to the days of Stravinsky’s youth.It would be interesting to learn whether Mendelssohn would enjoy our concert…Michał MendykConcert duration: approximately 80 minutes

Arditti Quartet / The quartet and modern masterpieces / cancelled

The Arditti Quartet is a chamber music legend. Half a century ago, the violinist Irvine Arditti invited three friends of his, students at London’s Royal Academy of Music, to perform Krzysztof Penderecki’s String quartet No. 2 together. Since then, the ensemble has premiered hundreds of contemporary pieces, released over 200 albums and traveled all the world with new music. The Arditti Quartet will perform a 20th-century masterpiece by Witold Lutosławski, music by Lucia Dlugoszewski, an American composer with Polish roots who is still little known here, and a piece by James Dillon, the quartet’s collaborator since the 80s. Adam Suprynowicz Concert duration: approximately 100 minutes

NOSPR / Katowice Culture Nature Festival

Details about the performers, repertoire, and ticket sales will be published along with the announcement of the entire festival program.

NOSPR / Festival Katowice Culture Nature

Details about the performers, repertoire, and ticket sales will be published along with the announcement of the entire festival program.

Shakespeare of Music

Shakespeare of Music

Shakespeare of Music

Great works of music

Why not play piano concertos as a chamber ensemble? It would be impossible to show rational obstacles. In the times before the phonograph, that was exactly how people learnt great works of music that were not being performed at a concert hall near them. Privately, at home, at meetings, making music together. It is the meeting of artistic individualities and their willingness to collaborate that give chamber music its sense. Hence the presence of Chopin’s Concerto in E minor in the version for five instruments today, on the 175th death anniversary of this most important Polish musician of all. For the same reason, its counterpoint will be the famous Trout, Schubert’s masterpiece which introduced the early romantic sensitivity to chamber music. This is music derived from the spirit of a simple song. These two romantic build up layers of human emotions, activate affections and pile up associations. This is all we need. Adam Suprynowicz Concert duration: approximately 100 minutes

Music of the Vasa times

Members of the House of Vasa were generous patrons of the arts, with music standing in particularly high favour among them. Under their rule, the Polish court became a melting pot of Polish culture and foreign influence. Italian musicians, whose significance was crucial for the development of baroque music, found an important place at the court of the Vasas, Polish music thus accepting forms and stylistics popular in other parts on Europe. Among the numerous musicians present (singers and instrumentalists), a special position belonged to Bartłomiej Pękiel, maestro di cappella of the Wawel cathedral. It was his oeuvre that proved most inspirational for the Polish Radio Choir, now located in Lusławice, to popularise works by the outstanding masters of the early 17th century with ties to the Vasa court. Alongside pieces by Bartłomiej Pękiel, we are also going to hear compositions by the Italian masters: Asprilio Pacelli, Annibale Orgas, Luzzascho Luzzaschi, and Girolamo Frescobaldi, which situate the works of the exceptional Polish composer in a broader context of the European musical heritage of early baroque. Furthermore, the programme of the concert includes works from the “Album Sapieżyńskie”, an early 17th-century collection of short pieces for the organ, the unique binding of which is an artifact of particular significance both in the history of music and of bookbinding.