Composers for peace: Kilar, Glass and Brossé

News 22 Nov 2022

In December, Film Fest Gent will present the Sinfonietta Cracovia Orchestra to the Belgian audience through the concert series Composers for peace, performing the music of the internationally renowned Polish composer Wojciech Kilar, the American composer and pianist Philip Glass and the Belgian composer, conductor and Film Fest Gent music director Dirk Brossé. The concert is part of the international Kilar 90 tour.

After the success of the Kilar | Glass concert at the Krakow Film Music Festival and at the inauguration of the prestigious Fimucité film music festival in Tenerife, Sinfonietta Cracovia again reaches for Wojciech Kilar’s film and concert pieces. This time in Belgium, the Orchestra will give four performances, conducted by Dirk Brossé – conductor, composer, and musical director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and Film Fest Gent, who was also appointed member of the Programming Board of the Sinfonietta Cracovia Orchestra by the orchestra’s director Agata Grabowiecka.

Another dimension to the tour is added by including in the programme the message of peace, carried in the piece written by the Belgian composer and inspired by Ludvig van Beethoven’s masterpiece. Ode an die Freude – recomposed is a contemporary variation on the final theme of the Viennese master’s 9th Symphony. Not only does the message resonate with the situation of war in Ukraine, but also with the need to commemorate the heroism of Polish soldiers fighting in Belgium during the Second World War. This is why one of the concerts will be titled: The Concert for the Year of Three Generals. The year of Three Generals commemorates Stanisław Maczek, Stanisław Sosabowski and Władysław Anders, generals of the Polish military forces who contributed to the Allied victory over the Third Reich in the Second World War. In 2022, the 130th anniversary of their birthdays will be celebrated.

The promotion of Polish culture and the universal message of peace and brotherhood will be thus expressed in the musical dialogue: from Beethoven, to Kilar and Glass.

Apart from the aforementioned Brossé’s composition, the programme will include pieces by Wojciech Kilar who composed, among others, scores for the masterpieces of the Polish film school, as well as films directed by Jane Campion (The Portrait of a Lady) and Francis Ford Coppola (Dracula). The name of the Kilar 90 tour comes from the 90th anniversary of the birth of the composer who combined various musical worlds throughout his career: concert and film music, the classical, as well as the avant-garde sound.

Alongside the pieces created by the Polish composer, Sinfonietta Cracovia will also perform the music of three-time Oscar nominee Philip Glass (nominated for Notes on a Scandal, The Hours and Kundun). The concerts will feature the performances of soloists Aleksander Dębicz (piano) and Joanna Radziszewska (soprano).

Partners

The concerts are organised in cooperation with the Polish Institute in Brussels. The tour is co-financed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (within the programme for the Promotion of Polish Culture Abroad) and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, with Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne as its partner. The Belgian partner of the tour is Film Fest Gent and its World Soundtrack Awards.