Krzysztof Penderecki
Sounds New is now firmly established as a central part of the UK's contemporary music calendar. It all began in 1997, when a group of Kentish friends met and decided it was time to seriously promote the music of our own time in a place where cultural heritage was key to its very being.
Twelve years on, Sounds New 2009 celebrates the music of Poland and adopts the theme "Polish Connections". This is the first major celebration of Polish contemporary music to have taken place in the UK in recent years. With significant financial support from the
Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the
Polish Cultural Institute, it has been possible to create a programme that celebrates the extraordinary impact that Polish music of the last forty or so years has made on contemporary music in general.
"Polish Connections" marks the start of the
POLSKA! YEAR -
Polish Cultural Year in the UK 2009-2010. In its ten days, Sounds New 2009 embraces well over fourty events. It sees over twenty UK premieres including works by
Krzysztof Penderecki,
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and a host of influential Polish composers. It has also commissioned a series of new works, many by composers who have either been profoundly influenced by the music of Poland or who have strong associations with Canterbury. And music is not where Sounds New stops... there are opportunities to see films and documentaries that have not been screened for far too long, there are practical workshops, there are exhibitions, and there are installations.
The world-renowned composer
Krzysztof Penderecki is the featured composer, and he comes to Canterbury to hear the UK premieres of his recent Sextet and brand new String Quartet no. 3. To add to the special nature of the event, the great composer conducts a team of soloists, the Warsaw Boys Choir,
Camerata Silesia, Polish Radio Choir Katowice and the
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in his great St. Luke Passion. This is the first time this monumental work has been performed in the UK in nearly thirty years.
"For some years, it has been Sounds New's ambition to see Penderecki's monumental 'St. Luke Passion' realised in our glorious cathedral. That Penderecki himself will conduct his country's finest forces on May 2nd in the great Nave is something that few of us had dared ever believe possibile. This concert will be one of those events that people will remember in years to come" (Paul Max Edlin, Artistic Director).
The St. Luke Passion occupies a unique place in the music of the Twentieth Century. It was written to commemorate the seven hundredth anniversary of Munster Cathedral and its premiere in 1966 coincided with the thousandth anniversary of Christianity's introduction into Poland. Few people could have predicted the immense impact the work had on its audience, the extraordinary critical acclaim it received and the palpable influence it has continued to have on subsequent composers all over the world. The model was Bach's Passions, and Penderecki also used psalms and hymns to further increase the spiritual and emotive depth. However, unlike Bach, Penderecki employed vast forces, creating a sound world of immeasurable emotive power.
Canterbury Cathedral
This year, performers include also the great virtuoso trumpeter and Principal of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama John Wallace who directs his finest students together with leading players from The Philharmonia Orchestra in a programme of celebratory music that opens the festival and culminates in a performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in the Quire of Canterbury Cathedral. Other performers include
Motion Trio, London Sinfonietta, Rolf Hind, Teresa Malik - the Grand Prix winner of the 2008 International Contemporary Chamber Music Competition,
Olga Pasiecznik and the
Silesian String Quartet and the Aurora Orchestra.
For further information about the Sounds New 2009 programme, please visit
www.soundsnew.org.uk.