On September 14, the prestigious Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari will host the Italian premiere of Zygmunt Krauze's two-act opera, which tells the poignant story of Bona Sforza d’Aragona. Staging this work in Bari carries deep symbolic meaning – it is the very city where the title heroine spent her final years and was laid to rest.

This autumn, with the September premieres of the latest Polish music, we are stepping forward neither boldly nor timidly – in keeping with Gdańsk’s motto. It is in this city that the first world premieres will take place. In September, we will be listening to new works by Polish composers in Gdańsk, Warsaw and Valencia. For the first time, we will hear works by Tadeusz Wielecki, Lidia Zielińska, Krzysztof Knittel and Agata Zubel.

Karol Augustyniak and Artur Szczepkowski have been selected as winners of the composer.pl programme – an artistic residency in Iceland for young Polish composers. The invited participants’ creative residency in the ‘Land of Ice and Fire’ will last two weeks, from 8 to 25 September.

Today, 2 December, marks the start of the 18th edition of one of Europe's most prestigious conducting competitions: the Donatella Flick – London Symphony Orchestra Conducting Competition. Grażyna Bacewicz's Concerto for String Orchestra is among the repertoire as an obligatory piece.

This timeless encounter with the music of ‘Poland’s last Romantic’ Tadeusz Baird and with the interpretative feats of NOSPR Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra features three symphonies and four outstanding conductors in both rediscovered historical and new recordings, released together on a 2CD album from ANAKLASIS.

Iconic songs by Zygmunt Konieczny that audiences of Ewa Demarczyk loved decades ago in a new arrangement by Cezary Duchnowski. The latest ANAKLASIS album with Agata Zubel, Andrzej Bauer, Bartek Wąsik and the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Humala is now available for purchase.

The theme of the 37th Krakow International Festival of Composers is music in music. Already in the 1970s, this issue was studied by the outstanding founder of the Krakow Theoretical School, Professor Mieczysław Tomaszewski. He reflected on the subject in an article entitled “At the Opening: why ‘music in music’”, which was published before one of the famous Music Meetings in Baranów. 

The theme of Krzysztof Knittel’s work is refuge and the uncertainty and anxiety about the unknown associated with it, as well as the other side of this topic, i.e. the need to provide help and shelter. The text of the oratorio is based on a poem by Tadeusz Sławek. The piece features singing, recitations, choral parts and improvisations based on the traditions of the Middle East. The album was premiered on 15 March during the 11th Festival of Premieres in Katowice.

Musicologists commonly call it “Kras 52” – after the former reference number it was given in the Krasiński Library. It is the most valuable Polish source of medieval polyphonic music, which shaped the soundscape of the court of the first Jagiellons and Kraków at that time. The manuscript is gaining new life now, thanks to a performance edition by Agnieszka Budzińska-Bennett and Marc Lewon. “Krasiński Codex” has just been published by PWM Edition with the support of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

Frequent guest of the world’s most famous music venues (New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Royal Albert Hall and BBC Proms, Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus), in February 2021 Bomsori signed an exclusive contract with the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label. As of this year, she also bears the honourable title of ambassador of Grażyna Bacewicz’s music, which she performs worldwide, promoting the legacy of Poland’s most important woman composer.