For its 24th edition, the Sinfonia Varsovia to Its City Festival is returning to the original formula, proposed years ago by the festival founder and first orchestra manager, Franciszek Wybrańczyk. This year’s concerts will be scattered throughout the capital and will take place in Śródmieście, Żoliborz, Mokotów and on the right side of the Vistula River – in Kamionek neighborhood.
There are 7 events ahead of us: two family concerts to celebrate Children’s Day (June 1), a chamber concert featuring young performers (May 18), and four symphonic concerts (May 13, 28, and June 4 and 9) featuring an international and Polish cast of conductors (Henrik Nánási, Daniel Mieczkowski, Christopher Austin and Joolz Gale) and soloists (violinist Jakub Haufa, cellist Jakob Kullberg, singers Iwona Sobotka, Agnieszka Rehlis, Tadeusz Szlenkier and Tomasz Konieczny).
The festival will be tied together by two unique events that prove Sinfonia Varsovia’s openness to its audience is not an empty declaration! We will begin on May 13 at the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera with a joint, joyful celebration of democratic values to the sounds of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. For the first time in the 40-year history of the orchestra, the artistic performance will be attended by… residents of Warsaw under the banner of the Warsaw Civic Choir. The anthem Joyful, Joyful, we adore Thee… will also be sung that evening by the gathered audience.
At the end of the festival, on June 9, in Sinfonia Varsovia’s Concert Pavilion, in a much more intimate setting, you will be able to meet your favorite orchestra artists… sitting next to them by their stands! The emotionally and technically diverse repertoire will be performed in three parts, with breaks in between in which the seating of the audience will be changed – to allow a group of nearly 200 listeners to participate in the experience.
The other two symphony concerts will feature classic items from the philharmonic repertoire: Sinfonia Varsovia concertmaster Jakub Haufa will appear as soloist in Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s melodious, Hollywood-like Violin Concerto (May 28, Polish History Museum), and Danish cellist Jakob Kullberg will perform a pearl of the Romantic solo repertoire, Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto (June 4, Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of Polish Radio). Both evenings will feature world premieres: in the first, the Polish premiere of Piotr Moss’s Incontri, originally performed in Paris more than 40 years ago; in the second, the world premiere of Niels Rønsholdt’s Cello Concerto No. 2 Western, completed a few weeks ago.
With the end of the artistic season, the next edition of the Sinfonia Varsovia Academy comes to a close. The traditional special final chamber concert (May 18, Nowa Miodowa) featuring students and their masters is usually characterized by positive energy and attractive repertoire. Sinfonia Varsovia’s academics continue the tradition of performing Beethoven’s symphonies in chamber ensembles. This time, there will be extensive excerpts from the famous Eroica in an arrangement from the composer’s era, complemented by Johannes Brahms’s youthful Serenade No. 1, Op. 11, in which one can hear the fascination with the music of Haydn and Beethoven.
The festival program could not miss a concert with Bazylek (Little Basil the Dragon), Sinfonia Varsovia’s and children’s friend alike. Bazylek will leave his favorite storehouse of instruments to go on a concert tour with the travel-experienced musicians of the Sinfonia Varsovia Wind Quintet to… the left side of the Vistula River, although musically they will travel halfway around the world. Two concerts on the occasion of Children’s Day (June 1, Teatr Lalka) titled Bazylek on tour will also remind adult listeners that journeys in the imagination can be quite real, if one retains at least the element of a child inside.
