Non - film Music
In 1998, he wrote Requiem dla mojego przyjaciela / Requiem For My Friend, dedicated to the memory of Krzysztof Kieślowski. It was his first composition written for a big ensemble, which was to be performed live (instead of being music for a film). In 2005 David Gilmour of Pink Floyd chose Zbigniew Preisner to arrange 9 of his songs for a 40–member string orchestra. Gilmour’s album On an Island with arrangements by the Polish composer was published in 2006. The concert tour, which promoted the album, ended at Gdańsk Shipyard in Poland. Preisner conducted the Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2007, he wrote Silence, Night and Dreams for choir, orchestra and soloists. Teresa Salgueiro, known from her achievements with Madredeus, took part in the recording of this work. EMI Classics published the album in 2007. In 2013 he realized the Diaries of Hope project, based on children’s memories of the Holocaust. As Preisner wrote on his website:
In the beginning of the 1990s we were (with Krzysztof Kieślowski) in Jerusalem, at the opening of Jerusalem Film Festival – writes Zbigniew Preisner on his website – I took part in a concert in the beautiful scenery of the open amphitheatre in the valley between the new and old parts of Jerusalem. (…) It wasn’t until then that I saw an exhibition concerning the Holocaust devoted entirely to children. When I was going through a dark hall, where thousands of candles shimmered, listening to the names of slaughtered children, interweaved with cantor’s singing, I felt devastated. I felt a strange sort of fear. It was a harrowing experience. After we got out of the exhibition and looked at the beautiful Jerusalem, Krzysztof said to me: ‘You have to describe what we felt inside musically. You just have to do it!’ (…) When I later read the diaries of Rutka Laskier, Dawid Rubinowicz and the poems of Abram Koplowicz and Abram Cytryn, I understood that all these dramatic notes have one thing in common. They were all written with hope.
The collaboration with Lisa Gerrard started in 2013 began a new chapter in Preisner’s career. After the release of Diaries of Hope, the artists performed together in Wrocław, London, Istanbul, and Shanghai. They met in the studio as well, recording music for the films Lies We Tell and Valley of Shadows. In the following years Gerrard and Preisner also performed together on stage, among others during the recorded concerts Here and Now and 2016 Dokąd? (2016 Whereto?, trans. MG).
Preisner records in his own studio in Niepołomice. His works as a producer include, among others, second album of post rock band Tides From Nebula Earthshine as well as two albums by Leszek Możdżer – Time and Between Us and the Light.