In the month of May the Philharmonic will focus mainly on film music. The next few concerts will comprise film compositions by Michał Lorenc, Jerzy “Duduś” Matuszkiewicz and Stanley Kubrick. We will also experience the next concerts in the SoundLab series with Tomek Makowiecki and Józef Skrzek, as well as in the Espressivo series of Monday jazz concerts.
Stay up to date. Subscribe to our newsletter.
May 6th – Eastern images
“Vivid and intense, genial and overwhelming – dramatically beautiful” – music critics all around the world are generous with praise for the young Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma, who will appear on stage at the Philharmonic in Szczecin with conductor George Tchitchinadze, one of the most famous Georgian artists. He is a real master of the conductor's baton, who can not only communicate with other artists, but also will the appreciation of the audiences.
May 7th – Stanieda plays with SMOK
Jan Stanienda is an outstanding chamber musician and brilliant virtuoso. His amazingly rich imagination has a huge unique impact on his interpretations, while his master phrasing and timbre and articulation manipulation make these creations well remembered by the listeners.
May 8th – Nutkalnia
Who is behind the production of the most beautiful of Polish animated films and has received two Oscars? Se-ma-for!, of course. And we are not talking here about a railway signal, but a 65-year-old animation studio which has produced over 1450 films. On May 8th, the Philharmonic in Szczecin will turn into a music sound factory – “Nutkalnia”. This will reveal the process of making film animations. The concerts will be a real treat for both the small and the big cinema-goers. They will see for themselves how important music is in film production.
May 9th – Obara International
Maciej Obara is one of the most interesting Polish jazz saxophonists – he has collected great reviews from music lovers and critics. He has made international success and appears in the programmes of most of the important festivals all around the world. Dominik Wania – a double-laureate of “Fryderyk” (a Polish music award) – is one of the most important contemporary jazz pianists.
They met in Tomasz Stańko's band and it is there where they became musical friends. Ole Morten Vågan, a double-bass player has cooperated with bands representing various styles, however, he has always been closer to contemporary improvised music.
May 12th – SoundLab – Makowiecki / Skrzek / Komendarek / Bloom
Many long hours of jam sessions in a hut in Kashubia, later three years of working on sounds at a home studio... The 2013 album entitled <<“Moizm” is the most uncompromising and personal thing, I have done so far,>> says Tomasz Makowiecki. This record is far from youthful days of the “Idol” music talent show finalist. The dream synthesiser Roland Juno 60 directed him to regions filled with playing with electronic music and sound processing. His crush on sound gave him an idea to create a collection of old synthesisers – their sound surely influenced their atmosphere of this record. The artist invited legends of Polish electronic music: Józef Skrzek and Władysław Komendarek to work on the album.
May 13th – Papusza's Harps
Wojciech Kocołowski wrote about “Papusza's Harps” in the following manner: “With the use of music Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz beatified a modest Gipsy woman, who travelled with a tabor, avoided doom, settled down by force, wrote from her heart and loved the world, even though the world loved her not.”.
The piece was used in the soundtrack of the film “Papusza” directed by Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze (premier date: November 2013), which brought Pawluśkiewicz an award at the 38th Gdynia Film Festival.
May 14th – Philharmonic chamber-style musicians
The Tanager is a bird whose twitter drew Antonín Dvořák's attention so much that he decided to take down its singing transcription in a notebook; from there the notes went into the music score of the “American String Quartet”. “The Fountain of Arethusa” by Karol Szymanowski will take us to the Mediterranean. Its unique value owes its characteristic texture to the delicate, light and flickering sound layers that are a feature of impressionistic music. Six artists of the Philharmonic in Szczecin will bring these distant musical landscapes to life in our musical chambers.
May 18th – DesOrient and Michał Lorenc
When he was 15, he ran away from his home in Bieszczady. He hadn't fallen in with bad company – rather, he came along with the Wolna Grupa Bukowina band. This is how the career of one of the most outstanding film music composers began. Michał Lorenc is a self-taught musician and composer of film music in both Polish and foreign productions. He has received awards in many festivals, and was nominated for an Oscar by 20th Century Fox for the music score to Bob Rafelson's “Blood and wine”. On the whole, he has written music to nearly 200 feature films and documentaries, TV series and theatrical performances.
May 19th – Raschèr Saxophone Quartet
The concert will be held as part of the 10th International Saxophone Festival. The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet was established in 1969 by Sigurda Raschèra, an outstanding American saxophonist. It was one of the first classic saxophone bands, giving concerts all around the world. They performed in all European states, the USA, Mexico, Canada, South-East Asia and Australia. It is one of the longest existing saxophone quartets (Bruce Weinberger played in it from the first line-up until 2014). The press called them “the uncontrolled kings of the sax”.
May 20th – Kubrick's Inspirations
Music was his great passion. One can say that he was addicted to it. Stanley Kubrick listened to music all the time, every day. When he was working on some specific film scene, he had music sounding in his ears, which is why in most of his films we can hear
classical pieces. He wanted to influence the audiences' subconscious mind rather than the intellect. Classical compositions appear in his most outstanding pictures: “Full Metal Jacket”, “The Shining”, “Eyes Wide Shut”. While thinking about the presence of music in films by this American director, Danuta Gwizdalanka observed” “Having the eyes and ears wide open, many episodes of Kubrick's films may be viewed as ballet”.
May 21st – Natalia Kukulska & the Atom String Quartet
During the show, we will hear the effects of a cooperation between the artists which can be found on the latest album of the singer “Ósmy plan”. The release is a double album and was made in cooperation with the great Atom String Quartet. The second CD “ Ósmy plan – Live in Alvernia Studios”, consists of songs from the first rearranged anew by the quartet.
May 22nd – Philharmonic musicians playing films
At the Philharmonic in Szczecin, we will hear popular motifs from films arranged especially for the Philharmonic players by Klaudiusz Jania. He is a young conductor, trumpeter, pianist and organist, a graduate of composition and arrangement class of the Jazz Institute of the Karol Szymanowski Jazz Academy in Katowice. He is author of the first printing of Händl's “Messiah” popular version in Poland, as well as the first jazz arrangements of Purcell and Haydn's music.
May 27th – Jerzy „Duduś” Matuszkiewicz
Who does not know such songs as “Czterdzieści lat minęło”, “Wojna domowa” or “Tylko wróć”? The man behind all of them is Jerzy “Duduś” Matuszkiewicz. He's one of the most important personas of the Polish popular music scene, a saxophonist, and also a composer of music to over 200 films and TV series. The album with his most popular film pieces from the collection “Great film composers”, received the status of Gold Record.