68th International Festival of Contemporary Music "Warsaw Autumn"
ANNOUNCEMENT!
CLEARANCE
About the human ability to overcome historical adversities. About the rebirth of cities, societies, and human force of vitality. Music in the context of reality, but also calling for changing it. About new opportunities and hopes.
This year’s Festival seems to be dominated by ensembles. But that is only the surface. Ensemble playing is not always associated with typical concerts. It offers works and events that span the spectrum between notation and performance, narrative and installation, sonority and intermedia, works to be performed by musicians and social events. Ensemble playing can be very diverse and bring new ideas to both the music itself and its forms of presentation.
MAIN STREAM
Cezary Duchnowski – opera / SINFONIA VARSOVIA, GRAND THEATRE–NATIONAL OPERA CHOIR / Joanna Freszel and Agata Zubel – sopranos, Bassem Akiki – conductor, Beniamin Bukowski – libretto, Barbara Wiśniewska – director // Pauline Oliveros, Hubert Zemler – music in several spaces, performance /INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE, SILENT PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE / Rafał Łuc and Hubert Zemler – musical direction, Michał Mendyk – curator // Philip Venables, Hannah Kendall, Marta Śniady, Paweł Malinowski, Laurence Osborn – concert / LONDON SINFONIETTA / Geoffrey Paterson – conductor // Pierre Jodlowski – opera / PHACE // Matthew Grouse, Eveline Vervliet, Nina Fukuoka, Paul Scully / NADAR ENSEMBLE // Aleksandra Gryka, Kim Myhr, Angélica Castelló, Pierre Slinckx – narrations and soundscapes / CIKADA ENSEMBLE // Lidia Zielińska and Icelandic composers – concert-soundscape / NORDIC AFFECT // Wolfgang Rihm, Ricardo Eizirik, Maciej Kabza, Golnaz Shariatzadeh, Fausto Romitelli – concert / EUROPEAN WORKSHOP FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC / Rüdiger Bohn – conductor // Wojciech Glądys, Jacek Sotomski – performative radio plays / Magda Szpecht – direction and dramaturgy / Rafał Ryterski – curator // Katarina Gryvul, Anna Sowa, Alex Paxton, Arash Yazdani – concert / ENSEMBLE MODERN / Jonathan Stockhammer – conductor // Piotr Tabakiernik – concert-mystery / NEW MUSIC ORCHESTRA, CAMERATA SILESIA / Szymon Bywalec – conductor // Claudia Scroccaro, Agata Zubel, Justė Janulytė, Franck Bedrossian – music in several spaces / SWR VOKALENSEMBLE, SWR EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO // Michael Hope – musical theatre / ENSEMBLE K!ART // Sara Glojnarić, Ewa Trębacz, Zosha di Castri, Idin Samimi Mofakham, Wojtek Blecharz – concert, music in several spaces / WARSW PHILHARMONIC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, proMODERN / Oscar Jockel – conductor // Kuba Krzewiński – performance / Phoebe Bognár, Anna Kwiatkowska, Kuba Krzewiński // and other events.
FOUR MORE CURRENTS
Warsaw Autumn Club / Dagna Sadkowska – curator // Little Warsaw Autumn / Anna Kierkosz – curator // Warsaw Autumn – Contexts / Katarzyna Naliwajek – curator // fringe events //
AND:
meetings with artists / workshops for young composers / Aleksandra Bilińska – coordination // broadcasts on the Festival Internet Radio / Monika Pasiecznik, Tomasz Biernacki – hosts //
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
This year, the theme of Warsaw Autumn does not refer to aesthetics or sound material, as was the case for example last year, when the Festival was tagged “Connections”, dealing as it did with the migration of musical phenomena between eras and different musical genres. This year’s Warsaw Autumn does not even have a specific theme, similarly to the 2017 edition entitled “Res Publica”, which dealt with the state of social relations on the 100th anniversary of the Polish state reborn after the partitions, or “Pneuma” in 2019, in which we explored the longing for a coherent world and the spiritual dimension that is eluding us contemporary humans.
“Prześwit” (Clearance)—the keyword of this year’s edition of the Festival—symbolises a new stage, a new openness and opportunity, from both a social and individual perspective. It touches upon the hope we would like to have for the future in these turbulent times. We draw attention to works that share their alarmist intuitions and fears with us not in order to plunge us into despair, but rather to alert us to something and bring us back to normality.
“Prześwit” is a term used by philosopher Martin Heidegger. “The German word ‘Lichtung’ means a clearing in the forest devoid of trees, which best illustrates the phenomenon. It also refers to the fragmentary passage of sunlight. In this interpretation, it becomes a gateway allowing us to see phenomena or objects that are partially obscured, hidden from view… The multitude of definitions creates a concept of synergic potential, as each of the meanings has a wide range of influence, together creating a new quality, describing quite well the possibilities of existence as well as identifying light as a source of illumination.” (Mateusz Kłosowski, “In the clearances of poetry and philosophy, where Leśmian and Heidegger meet”)
When we began designing this edition of the Festival a few years ago, we knew that it would centre on The Best City in the World. An Opera about Warsaw, commissioned by the City of Warsaw to mark the anniversary of the postwar liberation of the destroyed Polish capital from German occupation. It is worth reaching for Grzegorz Piątek’s book, which was the starting point for the opera. In a broad sense, the message of the composer, Cezary Duchnowski, and the librettist, Beniamin Bukowski does not only focus on the fate of Warsaw, but also other places of destruction. This includes places that have been devastated quite recently or are currently undergoing destruction. Here, we can talk about both a social and individual perspective.
When putting together this Warsaw Autumn’s programme, we looked for works that address experiences of collective and individual trauma. But on the other hand, as a counterbalance, we felt the need to present music that balances and compensates for such contexts and mentally “regenerates” the audience, opening them up to the light of “clearances” and intriguing sounds coming from afar, as is the case in our final concert. Our main thematic key ultimately encompasses very diverse content. It provides the context, the intellectual “edge” for the entire repertoire of this year’s Warsaw Autumn. This is also the case when the music presented is not necessarily closely related to the festival’s main idea.
I would like to thank all the creators of this year’s Warsaw Autumn, as well as the institutions and individuals supporting its organisation. In particular, my colleagues from the Programme Committee, the event curators, their coordinators, my colleagues from the Festival Office, various departments of the Polish Composers’ Union, all sponsors, co-organisers, and partners.
Jerzy Kornowicz
Director of the Festival
More information will follow soon. The programme is subject to change.
