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Katowice Culture Nature Festival / Oriental Dreams and Polish Springs / NOSPR / Kuan

Ferde Grofé, the American composer known for his orchestration of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, spent much time in the Grand Canyon, observing changes of the seasons and the weather. His impressions proved inspirational for the composition of the 1929-1931 five-movement Grand Canyon Suite. Thanks to the suggestive musical imaging, the composition quickly gained popularity in the United States and appeared in a 1958 Walt Disney animation. Its last movement, Cloudburst, which will open the final concert of the Katowice... Read full text

Keywords: Festival Katowice Culture Nature, Subscription Concert, Vocal Music

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Musicians

Carolyn KuanConductor
Sasha CookeMezzo-Soprano

Program

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Last update: Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 18:52

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Katowice Culture Nature Festival / The Romantic Arcadia / NOSPR Chamber Players / Schubert

Tue, May 13, 2025, 19:30
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Katowice Culture Nature Festival / Nature and Love / Piano Recital: Seong-Jin Cho

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Seong Jin Cho (Piano)
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Katowice Culture Nature Festival / Expulsion from the Paradise of Love / Bostridge / Giorgini / Schubert

Wed, May 14, 2025, 19:30
Ian Bostridge (Tenor), Saskia Giorgini (Piano)
The German poet Wilhelm Müller – as many a youth of his generation – was fascinated by Romanticism and dreamt about a community of the lyrical and the musical. Indeed, history remembered him predominantly as the lyricist of two famous song cycles by Franz Schubert. While Müller did not show a talent as great as Goethe’s or Schiller’s (even though he influenced Heine’s maturing imagination), the feelings and senses found in his poetry still provided Schubert with images and motives suggestive enough to show the composer new and surprising shades. In the twenty songs that form "The Fair Maid of the Mill" (1823), Müller and Schubert tell us the story of a young apprentice in search of work, who falls in love with a miller’s beautiful daughter; yet he fails in his efforts to win her heart, defeated by his rival – a hunter. He shares both his enthusiasm and his pain with his trusted confidant, the stream. Thus, friendly arcadian nature becomes something more than a mute witness to the protagonist’s drama.It is in the very same year in which The Fair Maid of the Mill was created that Schubert reaches for the text of a ballad by his close friend, Franz von Schober. The image created in Viola makes nature less of a poetic setting and more of an apt metaphor of human fate. The titular lyrical heroine, symbolizing purity and hope, awaits nuptials with her beloved – Spring – in vain. Once more in Schubert’s music, the beauty of life is overshadowed by suffering.Bartłomiej BarwinekConcert duration: approximately 60 minutes
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Katowice Culture Nature Festival / Jazz / Adam Ben Ezra / Heavy Drops (duo)

Sat, May 10, 2025, 19:30
Adam Ben Ezra (Double bass), Shayan Fathi (Drums)
A phenomenal multi-instrumentalist and true master of the double bass, Adam Ben Ezra is one of the world’s finest bassists. He has given hundreds of solo performances in Europe and in the United States, and collaborated with such stars as Pat Metheny and Snarky Puppy. The titular piece of his 2015 debut Can’t Stop Running amassed over a million views on YouTube and the artist himself has been a favourite with critics and audiences alike for many years now. His playing stands out thanks to the entirely unique sound of the instrument. He seamlessly joins lyrical melodies with chordal accompaniment and energetic percussive beat hit on the sound box. He complements the solo bass timbre with electronics and looped layers of vocals and other live instruments he records himself (such as the flute and the piano), the final effect being closer to the sound of a large jazz ensemble than that of a soloist.During his NOSPR concert, Ben Ezra will present material from his latest, fifth, album Heavy Drops. He made the recording in a duo with the exquisite Spanish drummer Michael Olivera, while on the Katowice stage he will be joined by the drummer Shayan Fathi, originally from Tehran. Similarly to his earlier albums, Ezra once more blends the sound of electric jazz (Cosmic Nomad) with oriental and flamenco influences (Taming the Bull), additionally enchanting listeners with his sensitivity and musicality in purely acoustic pieces (Portrait of Natalie). Magdalena Stochniol
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Katowice Culture Nature Festival / The Adventures of a Biblical Hero / Il pomo d’oro / Corti / DiDonato

Sun, May 11, 2025, 18:00
Francesco Corti (Conductor), Il Pomo d’Oro, Michael Spyres (Bariton), Joyce DiDonato (Mezzo-Soprano), Mélissa Petit (Soprano), Cody Quattlebaum (Bariton), Jasmin White (Contralto)
„Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute” – so begins the biblical story of Jephthah, who freed the people of Israel from the reign of the Ammonites. Before heading into battle, Jephthah vowed to sacrifice the first being that comes to greet him should he return home victorious. The one who greeted him was his only daughter. Jefte “did with her according to his vow that he had made”, but before doing so, he yielded to his only child’s request, which was that she could spend some time in the mountains, where she would weep at her virginity. According to Jewish tradition, Jephthah had to fulfil his vow because he showed hubris in failing to seek advice with jurists, who might have told him that the Torah forbade human sacrifice. However, some rabbis have found that it was not his daughter’s life, but her virginity that was offered as sacrifice – considering this enough of a punishment, as childlessness was considered shameful to Israelites. It was the latter interpretation that was adopted by Thomas Morell, whose collaboration with Händel had started with the Judas Maccabaeus libretto. Jephtha proved to be the last oratorio in the composer’s oeuvre. It was premiered on 26th February 1752 at Covent Garden, conducted by Händel himself and performed by his most famous singers. The work made history as an ambiguous symbol of agony: Jephthah’s pain, written down in the sounds, and the suffering of the composer, who was gradually losing sight and wrote “How dark, O Lord, are thy decrees” at the end of the score. Jephthah ruled over Israel for six years. Händel died seven years after the premiere of Jephtha. Dorota KozińskaConcert duration: approximately 160 minutes
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Katowice Culture Nature Festival / Return to Paradise? / Orchestra di Santa Cecilia / Harding / Bell

Fri, May 9, 2025, 19:30
Daniel Harding (Conductor), Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia - Roma, Joshua Bell (Violin)
The neoclassical balance to be found in the Violin Concerto in A minor is not only due to Antonín Dvořák’s own efforts, but also to the persuasion of its dedicatee, the great violinist Joseph Joachim, whom the composer himself asked for advice. The themes of this three-movement work are full of Slavic intonations, at times lively and at times lyrical. The heart of the Concerto is the middle movement – one of unusual size and creating an idyllic aura: its cloudless skies are only rarely spoiled by passing worries. The main problem troubling Gustav Mahler – the intuition that beauty is but a deceitful escape from the tragic condition of the human being – is already present, with its full force, in his Symphony No. 1. The work opens with one of the most wonderful musical images of spring awakening, which fills the care-free heart of the youthful wanderer (Mahler used a quote from his own song I Went This Morning over the Field). Slowly, however, dramatic tones begin to show – nature is no paradise and the veil of its seductive forms hides suffering. It is not only the human being that is touched by agony, but other creatures as well. This is “told”, in a tone of tragic irony, by the third movement – a grotesque funeral march, inspired by a picture of a hunter seen off to his eternal rest by a procession of animals. The finale begins with an explosion of despair. The protagonist of the symphony, in Mahler’s own words, “triumphs only in death, defeating himself. Then, the miraculous allusion to the days of youth will be heard.”Marcin Trzęsiok Concert duration (intermission included): approximately 110 minutes
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NOSPR / Alsop / Yang / Polish sonorism and music of the north

Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 19:30
Marin Alsop (Conductor), NOSPR, Inmo Yang (Violin)
Although Sibelius’ Violin Concerto is not programmatic music, it is permeated by the same Northern colour and breadth of breath that can be found in nearly all works by the creator of Finlandia. This is because landscape is not present there merely as a decoration – as it was in 18th-century music – but to reflect the scenery of the soul. Part of the core violinistic repertoire, enclosed within the framework of classical form, for over a hundred years, the piece has not ceased to inspire a sense of wonder, not only with its mysterious atmosphere and richness of sound, but also with its symphonic elan and originality of themes. While the British musicologist Donald Tovey called the final movement of the Concerto a “polonaise for polar bears”, he granted it – and rightly so! – an honourable place among the greatest violin concertos of Romanticism. Another great classic of 20th-century music is Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, in which – as Alex Ross put it – the Hungarian composer and folklore researcher “decided to throw away his notebook and began dancing with them [peasants]. From the strings, there rise clouds of dust, setting on the feet of the frenzied dancers.”. While the musical language of this late work of Bartok’s is a softened one, its form is classicising, and the sounds are nearly euphonic, still what is the most important for his style was retained – distinct rhythms, colourful instrumentation, and subtle inspiration drawn from folklore. Piotr MatwiejczukConcert duration: approximately 110 minutes
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NOSPR / Vermeulen / „Too many notes!” / Mozart’s arias and symphonies gala

Sun, Jan 12, 2025, 12:00
Dirk Vermeulen (Conductor), NOSPR, Ilse Eerens (Soprano)
Although Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would compose music in virtually all the genres popular in his lifetime, it was opera that he was most enthusiastic about. The concert will begin with Chaconne and Pas seul – ballet fragments from the opera seria (i.e. a serious one) Idomeneus, King of Crete, emanating pomp and circumstance, commissioned by the Munich opera theatre. Then, Ilse Eerens will perform three fragments from another one of Mozart’s works for theatre. The recitative Crudele! and the subsequent dramatic-lyrical aria Non mi dir belong to Donna Anna’s part in Don Giovanni, a work its composer curiously dubbed „a joyous drama”. Further, we are going to hear the good-humoured recitative Giuns’alfin il momento and the lyrical aria Deh vieni non tardar, which maintains its mood. Both come from the fourth act of the opera buffa The Marriage of Figaro, in which they are sung by Susanna during the night-time garden scene. The final link in Eerens’ performance will be the aria Fra l’oscure ombre funeste, from the Old Testament-inspired cantata Davide penitente – solemn in its mood, to the extent of seeming ceremonious. The concert will be crowned with a performance of a work that constitutes the embodiment of the classical style, namely the Symphony in D major, also known as the Haffner Symphony. The symphony’s subtitle is the surname of a Salzburg family the composer was friends with, the occasion for its commission being the ennoblement of Sigmund Haffner. In his letters, Mozart emphasised that the first movement is fiery, while the finale ought to be played “as fast as possible!”Oskar ŁapetaConcert duration: approximately 70 minutes
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NOSPR / Zagrosek / Mahler’s happiest symphony

Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 19:30
Lothar Zagrosek (Conductor), NOSPR, Olga Bezsmertna (Soprano)
The most joyous one among Gustav Mahler’s symphonies does not, by any means, renounce either the grotesque irony that is so typical for the composer or eschatological threads. Yet again, it deals with the subject of death. This time, however, it is first represented by the grotesque Ländler played by the violin in the scherzo, later to introduce us to the realm of paradise in the finale. But is this true paradise, or rather an image, ironical in its effect, that arises from the naive folk poetry of The Boy’s Magic Horn collection, which the composer uses in his symphonies for the last time?Jakub PuchalskiConcert duration: approximately 70 minutes