Folk Euphonies

plakat_festiwalu_eufonie.jpg, default, Eufonie 2023 festival poster, photo: press material

The Eufonie Festival transforms Warsaw into a stage for a unique celebration of sound, where classical and jazz meet folk traditions and contemporary experiment. Audiences are treated to outstanding performances, fresh reinterpretations of folk music, and even a traditional dance party inspired by the town of Cieszyn. With many concerts streamed online and broadcast on Polish Radio Programme II – Dwójka, the festival opens this musical journey to listeners far beyond the concert hall.

'For nine days, around seven hundred and fifty artists from twelve countries, including eight orchestras, three choirs, nine conductors, and twelve soloists will perform on the Festival’s stages. We will hear music created by composers from fifteen countries, including some world premieres,' announced, at a press conference, Rafał Wiśniewski, the director of Eufonie Festival and the Polish National Cultural Centre (NCK). The latter received the Visegrád Prize from the region's ministers of culture during this year’s Visegrád Group summit. 'As we mark the Festival’s fifth birthday, we also take the time to look back and evaluate its impact,' said Jarosław Sellin, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. 'Eufonie Festival definitely fills a certain gap and consistently strengthens its position and recognition on the musical map of Poland. The Festival is one of the key areas of Poland’s international activity, but also a culturally important point of reference for us, Poles'.

The central theme of this year’s festival is folk traditions, which are an infinite source of inspiration for artists and they form the basis of national identities. Thanks to their diversity, they truly reflect the character of Central and Eastern Europe – full of small homelands, nations, and religions, but also many common features.

Folk traditions are often exploited by composers, and for many composers, the 18th-century understanding of folklore served as inspiration in their search for ethnic and national identity. Incorporating elements of folk into other genres of music may be the result of a search for new ideas, improving the composer’s vocabulary or broadening the means of expression, or even a demonstration of solidarity with the oppressed within the society.

– added Mieczysław Kominek, president of the Polish Composers’ Union and chairperson of the programme board of the Eufonie Festival.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra – founded in 1930 and one of the world’s most recognizable orchestras – will perform for the audience in Warsaw at the Festival’s opening concert. The musicians will be led by Estonian conductor Olari Elts, and the soloist will be the outstanding violinist Vadim Guzman. The artist was born in 1973 in what is now Ukraine, was educated in Riga, and later emigrated to Israel with his family in 1990. He now teaches at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. Early in his career, Guzman was mentored by Isaac Stern; in 1994 he was awarded the Henry Szeryng Foundation Prize. The concert will open with Edward Elgar’s symphonic prelude ‘Polonia’, which features motifs from the Polish anthem and compositions, among others, by Frédéric Chopin and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. The first part of the evening will also feature Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 61 – a work imbued with the spirit of Podhale region of Poland. The second part will be devoted to Finnish composers: Jean Sibelius and Lotta Wennäkoski, who will join us in Warsaw.

During the final concert, we will hear a performance of the two-part version of Krzysztof Penderecki's Utrenja. This will be only the second performance of this monumental work in Warsaw – the first took place in 1971 during the Warsaw Autumn Festival. At that time, the work was presented at St John's Cathedral in the Old Town; this time, the piece, inspired by Orthodox liturgy, will be performed at All Saints' Church in Grzybowski Square. Krzysztof Penderecki’s work will be performed by 230 artists, including the Polish National Philharmonic Choir, the Poznań Boys' Choir and Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by Zsolt Nagy, as well as outstanding soloists – Bożena Bujnicka, Agnieszka Rehlis, Rafał Bartmiński, Tomasz Konieczny, and Volodymyr Tyszkov. The concert will celebrate the 90th anniversary of maestro’s birth.

This year’s festival will also feature a number of world premieres, including Europolifonie performed by the proMODERN vocal sextet, a new version of a composition by Mikołaj Górecki, music for the film Chłopi [Peasants], and Hiob [Job] by Jarosław Bester.

Weronika Grozdzew-Kolacińska podczas koncertu grupy Village Kollectiv, Białystok, 2010, fot. Jędrzej Wojnar / AW — Weronika Grozdzew-Kolacińska during a concert of Village Kollectiv, Białystok, 2010, photo by Jędrzej Wojnar / AW

Europolifonie is a project created by Weronika Grozdew-Kołacińska and Piotr Pieron, which proposes a series of polyphonic pieces from various musical cultures of different European countries including Ukraine, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, and Poland. The idea is to show the common sources of European culture, the amazing timeliness of traditional repertoire and its rich qualities. The festival audience will have the opportunity to hear the first performance of Mikołaj Górecki's Double Variations for Guitar and Harp. This new version of this never before performed piece was dedicated to the ACh Duo ensemble. For the first time in a concert, we will hear music to the film Peasants created by L.U.C.a (Łukasz Rostkowski), with the participation of around one hundred artists (Rebel Babel Orchestras, Dagadana, Laboratorium Pieśni, Sutari, the National Philharmonic Orchestra, Maria Pomianowska, Bela Komoszyńska). Both the composer himself and the rising star of Polish conducting, Anna Sułkowska-Migoń – the winner of last year's La Maestra competition in Paris – will appear on stage. The work of Finnish and Slovenian composers, Lotta Wennäkoski and Nina Šenk, will also be performed for the first time.

The concert of the Hover State Chamber Choir, conducted by Sony Howhannisian, will be a unique opportunity to explore vocal works from Armenia; the entire second part of the concert will be devoted to the work of Armenian composers: from Komitas, considered one of the founders of modern Armenian music, to contemporary composers Vacha Sharafian and Arzas Voskanian, who will attend the festival in person.

The organisers have also included interdisciplinary projects combining music and dance and music and image. A concert by the Olza Song and Dance Ensemble and the Lipka Band will culminate in a dance party – the first in the history of Eufonie. The screening of the reconstructed, first Slovak feature film by Jaroslav Sakel, Janosik (1921), recognised on the UNESCO World Heritage list, will be accompanied by live performances by the Bashavel ensemble and Sinfonietta Žilina. We will also see fragments from the film Peasants and footage from behind the scenes of the creation of this extraordinary painted animation, produced with the support of the NCK.

The festival will feature performances of music by prominent Polish composers, Krzysztof Penderecki and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (whose 90th birthdays we celebrate this year), as well as Karol Szymanowski, Andrzej Panufnik, Mikołaj Górecki, and Witold Lutosławski (born 110 years ago). A special event accompanying the festival will be an exhibition at the National Philharmonic Hall devoted to the ideographic signs present in the notation of Krzysztof Penderecki's Cosmogony, written for the 25th anniversary of the UN (16.11–03.12),

The Slovenian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra led by Thomas Sanderling will also perform during the festival. The distinguished conductor has worked, among others, with Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert programme will include a piece by the acclaimed Slovenian composer Nina Šenk, two works by Andrzej Panufnik and the Piano Concerto by Ferenc Liszt, whose soloist will be Leonora Armellini, a favourite of Warsaw audiences and who came in fifth place at the 18th Chopin Competition in 2021.

A concert by one of the most important Czech symphony orchestras: Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Tomáš Netopil will be an opportunity to travel through the Czech Republic and the history of our southern neighbours – all thanks to one of the most famous symphonic poems: 'Má vlast' (My Fatherland) by Bedřich Smetana, the forefather of Czech national music, whose work combined the best of European Romantic musical traditions with the richness of Czech folk music.

In thinking about Central and Eastern Europe, the question of self-definition of is essential,' says Rafał Wiśniewski, director of the NCK. The borders within this region are very tangible to its inhabitants. It is worth emphasizing that a community of this kind is unique on a global scale. Describing it with the use of political categories is difficult, and it is best expressed through culture. We think of our relations with other countries a multidimensional, we do not want to shut anyone out – the programme of this festival is a kind of invitation to discuss and experience emotions brought up by music, together.

Eufonie Festival explores the traditions of the regional community of countries defined as Central and Eastern Europe, but it also moves beyond strict geographical definitions, and presents the rich musical landscape of the region stretching from the Balkans, through Romania and Austria, the Visegrád Group countries, Ukraine and Belarus, to Scandinavia and the Baltics. This area is a fascinating melting pot of clashing influences from both East and West, brimming with cultural energy that has often defined the identity of stateless nations. Eufonie Festival is the only festival in the world that popularizes the musical heritage of this part of the world.

The organizers of the Festival are the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the National Cultural Centre (NCK). PKN Orlen is the event’s patron. Partners of the event are National Philharmonic Orchestra, Polish Radio Programme II – Dwójka, and Culture.pl – Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Media patrons are: TVP, TVP Kultura, Polskie Radio, PAP, Presto, Polmic.pl. Editorial partners of the festival are Polska Press Grupa, and the online portal i.pl.

Festival director: Dr Rafał Wiśniewski

Festival Programme Commission: Dr Mieczysław Kominek – Chairman of the Council, Ewa Bogusz-Moore, Dr Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska, Professor Olga Smetanová, Marek Horodniczy, and Aleksandra Jagiełło-Skupińska.

Language English

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