The Krakow International Festival of Composers (formerly known as Days of Music by Krakow Composers and 2014-2019 International Festival of Krakow Composers) has been part the cultural life of Krakow since 1989. The main purpose of the Festival is the promotion and presentation of contemporary professional work of Krakow composers (classics and professors, but also the outstanding middle generation, and the youngest composers and students of composition) created in relation to world music. This concept is realized via organization of concerts and meetings with composers. What is more, special lectures are organized during the Festival (conducted, among others, by music theorists of the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Krakow, musicologists of the Jagiellonian University and invited guests from Poland and abroad).
In 1989, the festival was brought to life by Jerzy Kaszycki, Juliusz Łuciuk, Maciej Negrey and Kazimierz Pyzik. Since 1994 (for 20 years) the artistic director of the festival and the author of the program concept was musicologist Jerzy Stankiewicz. Since 2014 the general and artistic director is composer Marcel Chyrzyński.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
The main theme of the 33rd Krakow International Festival of Composers are ancient civilizations — mainly the ancient culture of Greece and Rome, but there will also be other references, including the South American culture of Nazca. We will hear such compositions as Toshio Hosokawa’s Medea Fragments, Brian Ferneyhough’s Casandra’s Dream Song, Michael Gatonski’s Ecotopia 4, Witold Szalonek’s Głowa Meduzy, and Jacek Domagała’s Cassiopee II. Two scientific sessions will be held during the festival: Antiquity in Music and Music and Nature (at first planned for last year), during which outstanding music theorists and musicologists will present their papers (Teresa Malecka, Jerzy Stankiewicz, Magdalena Dziadek, Agnieszka Draus, Kinga Kiwała, Iwona Sowińska-Fruhtrunk, Dominika Micał and Jan Topolski).
The 33rd Festival will feature outstanding musicians: Ensemble OMN conducted by Szymon Bywalec, Alicja Molitorys, Iwona Glinka, Athanasios Trikoupis, Łukasz Długosz, Agata Kielar-Długosz, AdAstra Piano Trio and many others. Traditionally, we will also hear an Electronic Cocktail, a presentation of the Electroacoustic Music Studio at the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Krakow.
An important part of the festival program is the 4th Krzysztof Penderecki International Competition for Young Composers. This year’s jury awarded the main prize to A Horny Faun’s Rampage for chamber orchestra by South Korean composer Jongsung Oh (b. 1987). The award-winning piece will be premiered at the festival’s opening concert at the Krakow Philharmonic on 10 April 2021.
The entire event will be complemented by two lectures referring to antiquity in the works of contemporary composers: T by Iwona Glinka and Athanasios Trikoupis from the University of Ioannina in Greece.
The concerts will feature works by composers from Poland, England, China, Greece, Japan, Germany, Ukraine, Italy, and the USA. You will hear 23 world premieres and one Polish premiere.
For epidemiological reasons, all events will be held without the participation of the audience; they will be streamed online on our official YouTube channel (Krakow International Festival of Composers), and one of the concerts will be broadcast from Patras, Greece.
Marcel Chyrzyński
General and artistic director