On 18th November, a new piece by Stańczyk entitled Some Drops will be performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik. It’s not the first piece on which Stańczyk, winner of the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award, has worked with the ensemble. In 2015, they prepared Blink Walk for the Music Biennale in Venice. Ensemble Musikfabrik was created in 1990 in Düsseldorf, and moved to Cologne in 2003. The group focuses on cooperating with the youngest composers and conductors, but it also works with recognised contemporary music artists such as Heiner Goebbels, Péter Eötvös, Georg Friedrich Haas, Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders, and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Raphael Rogiński, a guitarist who explores forgotten music traditions and studies the sources of blues and African, Jewish, and contemporary American music, will give a recital on 21st November. His recent recording, Raphael Rogiński Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes African Mystic Music, was ranked highly on journalists' annual lists in Poland and abroad.
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Huddersfield is a town in northern England with a population of 160,000, three hours by train from London – an unusual place to host a world-class event. However, amongst its audience are the most important music critics and directors of other festivals, which is why the festival can open many doors for artists. The Adam Mickiewicz Institute's Ewa Bogusz-Moore underlined that this was the reason for choosing for this festival as a partner for the next three years.
In 2015 Polish contemporary music was one of the main subjects of the festival. The British audience could familiarise themselves with works by Jagoda Szmytka, Agata Zubel, Zbigniew Karkowski, Tomasz Sikorski, The Moon (Księżyc), and Robert Piotrowicz. Mirt and Maja Ratkje presented their compositions inspired by the Polish Radio Experimental Studio’s activities. In an interview with PAP, the festival’s director Graham McKenzie said:
Poland is an as yet undiscovered yet incredible music world. We avoid showing only individual countries, because it reminds me of some sort of music tourism. Instead, we invite Polish creators and artists to play together with British or international artists. That’s how something new, creative and unexpected is brought to life – that’s the essence of contemporary music.
Source: own materials, written by FL, translated by BR, 7 Nov 2016