News
Elżbieta Sikora's Jubilee
2013-10-20
Today, October 20, Elżbieta Sikora – one of the most original Polish composers - celebrates her 70th birthday. Elżbieta Sikora was born in Lwów on 20 October 1943. She completed studies in sound engineering at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw. In 1968-70 she studied electroacoustic music under Pierre Schaeffer and Francois Bayle at the Paris Groupe de Recherches Musicales. After her return to Warsaw, she took up composition studies with Tadeusz Baird and Zbigniew Rudziński. During her studies, together with Krzysztof Knittel and Wojciech Michniewski she formed the KEW composers' group, with which she toured in Poland, Sweden, Austria and West Germany. Since 1981 she has lived in France where she attended a computer music course at IRCAM and studied composition with Betsy Jolas. At present she is professor at the Conservatory in Angouleme, France, where she teaches electroacoustic music.A recipient of grants from the French government, the city of Mannheim and the Kosciuszko Foundation, she worked under John Chowning for several months at the Center for Computer Research for Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), at Stanford University.
She is the winner of the Young Composers' Circle of the Polish Composers' Union prize (1978, distinction for According to Pascal), Weber Competition in Dresden (1978, Second prize for a chamber opera Ariadna), Electroacoustic Music Competition in Bourges (1980, distinctions for The Waste Land and Letters to M.) and a competition for composers in Mannheim (1982, First prize for Guernica). In 1998 she received a Prix Magistere from the Bourges Festival of Electroacoustic Music. Sikora received two SACEM awards in 1994: Prix Pedagogique for Chant'Europe and Prix du Printemps for all of her works. In 1996 she was granted "Nouveau Talent Musique" prize for her opera L'Arrache-coeur in Paris. She also earned the Prix de la Partition Pédagogique and the Prix Stéphane Chapelier-Clergue-Gabriel-Marie, both from SACEM (both 1994). She was also awarded the Heidelberger Künstlerinnen-Preis (2000) and earned a special mention from the Académie du Disque Lyrique in Paris (2003, for a recent Le Chant du Monde recording), Pomorska Nagroda Artystyczna Gryf (2012), Splendor Gedanensis (2012), Sztorm Roku 2011. In 2013 Sikora received Annual Award of Związek Kompozytorów Polskich, special award of Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Gloria Artis award and Orphée du Prestige Lyrique de l'Europe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMxKAt_Qark
Most popular:
The theme of the 37th Krakow International Festival of Composers is music in music. Already in the 1970s, this issue was studied by the outstanding founder of the Krakow Theoretical School, Professor Mieczysław Tomaszewski. He reflected on the subject in an article entitled “At the Opening: why ‘music in music’”, which was published before one of the famous Music Meetings in Baranów.
The theme of Krzysztof Knittel’s work is refuge and the uncertainty and anxiety about the unknown associated with it, as well as the other side of this topic, i.e. the need to provide help and shelter. The text of the oratorio is based on a poem by Tadeusz Sławek. The piece features singing, recitations, choral parts and improvisations based on the traditions of the Middle East. The album was premiered on 15 March during the 11th Festival of Premieres in Katowice.
Musicologists commonly call it “Kras 52” – after the former reference number it was given in the Krasiński Library. It is the most valuable Polish source of medieval polyphonic music, which shaped the soundscape of the court of the first Jagiellons and Kraków at that time. The manuscript is gaining new life now, thanks to a performance edition by Agnieszka Budzińska-Bennett and Marc Lewon. “Krasiński Codex” has just been published by PWM Edition with the support of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Frequent guest of the world’s most famous music venues (New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Royal Albert Hall and BBC Proms, Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus), in February 2021 Bomsori signed an exclusive contract with the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label. As of this year, she also bears the honourable title of ambassador of Grażyna Bacewicz’s music, which she performs worldwide, promoting the legacy of Poland’s most important woman composer.
The 4CD album featuring songs and instrumental works by the Silesian master goes on sale as of 8 November. Released by the ANAKLASIS music label, it will be premiered on 3 December during a special PWM Edition concert held as part of the 12th International Days of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki at the Silesian Philharmonic in Katowice.
The esteemed American-Canadian jazz musician Michael Bates, his Acrobat Ensemble and the Lutosławski Quartet will perform three concerts in Poland in November. The repertoire will include material recorded by the musicians on the album METAMORPHOSES: VARIATIONS ON LUTOSŁAWSKI, released by ANAKLASIS in the REVISIONS series.
The artists have already successfully presented it at Lincoln Center and Barbès Jazz Club in New York. In autumn 2024 we will have the opportunity to hear them live for the first time in Poland: 14.11 - Krakow, 15.11 - Lublin, 17.11 - Wroclaw.
The Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw invites to the inaugural session of the biennial International Digital Musicology Conference, which will be held 23–25 October 2024, at the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, Poland. The conference focuses on the integration of digital technologies into musicological research, with a special emphasis on introducing digital tools and methods to the Polish academic community, where digital musicology has not yet been widely adopted.
Although Ludomir Różycki - one of the most important representatives of Young Poland - enjoyed spectacular success as a composer during his lifetime, his works are rarely included in concert programmes today. It is therefore worth remembering his exceptional art.
Aleksander Nowak continues his original cycle of compositions that enter into a dialogue with most recent Polish literary works. The album premiere of his opera based on Marcin Wicha’s Nike-awarded book Things I Didn’t Throw Out will take place during the AUKSODRONE festival in Tychy.
Musical themes from Coppola’s cult movie, as deconstructed and reinterpreted by this wayward duo, will be performed at a live concert accompanied by the premiere of THEMES OF DRACULA from ANAKLASIS on vinyl records.
