The ISCM World Music Days is a festival of contemporary music provided by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) – one of the most important international networks of members from around fifty countries, devoted to the promotion and presentation of contemporary music – the music of our time. Each year the festival is hosted by one of the ISCM’s members; in 2014 the event was held in Wrocław. The host nation has some flexibility in determining the individual themes that drive the programming of the festival, either by presenting a showcase of activity from around the world, or applying other criteria for the selection and programming of works. In 2016 its theme was "Sounds of Tomorrow".
On 30th March 2016 the Black Box theatre hall hosted the concert of the Gaia String Quartet & Brass Ensemble performing Three Polish Dances (Mazur, Kujawiak, Oberek) for brass quintet and organ by Ewa Fabiańska-Jelińska. The following day, during a concert in the Tongyeong Concert Hall, Gyeonnggi Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Shi-Yeon Sung performed Five Miniatures for Orchestra by Elżbieta Sikora.
Ewa Fabiańska-Jelińska, born in 1989, is a composer, musicologist and improviser. She has won many national and international competitions for composers, including International Composers Competition at the Oklahoma City University (United States, 2010), the European Young Composers Competition Gramodeska (Prague, 2011), the Tadeusz Ochlewski Composers Competition organised by the Polish Music Publishing House (2011, 2015) at which her work Miniatures sonoristiques for prepared trombone solo was awarded 1st prize (2011), and the Zygmunt Mycielski Composers Competition staged by the Polish Composers Union (2013, 2014). Ewa Fabiańska-Jelińska's works are published by The Polish Music Publishing House (Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne), Acte Prélable and Norsk Musikforlag (Norway). In the artistic season 2014/2015 Ewa Fabiańska-Jelińska was the composer-in-residence of Baltic Neopolis Orchestra as part of the program organised by the Institute of Music and Dance.
Elżbieta Sikora, born in 1943, graduated from the Department of Sound Engineering of the Higher State School of Music in Warsaw, where she studied under Antoni Karużas. In the years 1968-70 she studied electroacoustic music in Paris at Groupe de Recherches Musicales under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer and François Bayle. In 1973 together with Krzysztof Knittel and Wojciech Michniewski Sikora founded the composer’s group KEW, alongside which she performed at concerts in Poland, Sweden, Austria and Germany. She has lived in France since 1981. Elżbieta Sikora composes instrumental and electronic music, among her works there are also operas, including one dedicated to Maria Skłodowska-Curie (Madame Curie).