2025-01-01

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.

What Bomsori and Grażyna Bacewicz have in common is not only the instrument and the accolades they won in the International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition (an honorary diploma for Bacewicz, who took part in it in 1935 and later served on its jury; 2nd prize to Kim in its 15th edition of 2016), but also their courage and perseverance in the pursuit of artistic perfection.

Daniel Cichy, PhD, editor in chief of PWM Edition, commented: Bomsori Kim’s love of, and respect for, the works of Grażyna Bacewicz is evident in every musical phrase which she discovers anew for her audience. I am convinced that Bacewicz – an outstanding Polish composer, violinist, pianist, and writer – would be delighted with the fine subtle colours of Bomsori’s interpretations, with the Korean musician’s artistic maturity, emotional sensitivity, and unquestioned virtuosity. We are happy to have Bacewicz’s works performed by such a phenomenally talented artist, who presents a model for new generations of musicians to emulate.

© Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, photo: Bartek Barczyk 

Considered today as Poland’s greatest woman composer and an eminent figure in twentieth-century music, Grażyna Bacewicz built her position in the music scene with genuine determination, combining a violinist’s career with her work as a composer. She quickly became one of the most outstanding representatives of Neoclassicism in music. Later she reformed her style and gave it a highly individual character.

Like many other Central European artists, Bacewicz (born in 1909) had to face the political realities of her age, witnessing two world wars and the Stalinist regime. She studied composition with Kazimierz Sikorski, violin with Józef Jarzębski, and piano with Józef Turczyński at Warsaw Conservatory. The then musical society looked down on women composers. At the start of Bacewicz’s artistic path, she was viewed first and foremost as a violinist, and her creative ambitions – frequently as a whim. Undeterred, she wrote and performed her own compositions, which earned her growing respect and acclaim. In a story titled Are You Sure You Haven’t Lost Your Way?, Bacewicz thus recalled the dismissive attitude of some of her colleagues from Sikorski’s composition class to her work:

‘Are you sure, miss, that you haven’t lost your way?’
‘What are you looking for in this place, miss? This is not the university. It’s a composition class, miss.’
[…] I turned a deaf ear to the teasing of my colleagues – Szałowski, Palester, and Neuteich – nor did I care that they needled me (I honestly can’t say why I didn’t, since in fact I should have done).
This joking and snide remarks didn’t go on for long. No more than three weeks.
Neuteich was the first to stop it, followed by the other two.
Was it that they had grown accustomed to my presence? Or did they no longer think of me as someone out of place? Both to some extent, I guess. But the main reason was different. Instinctively and without premeditation, I adopted an attitude that silenced them, since I simply showed no concern for their biting remarks.

Grażyna Bacewicz,
Życie w słowach i obrazach [A Life in Words and Images], PWM 2024
 

Grażyna Bacewicz scored numerous successes as a composer and performer. She played recitals and concerts on European stages, appearing under the baton of eminent conductors. She won awards in her both capacities. Conductors and performers alike thought highly of her music, which ever so frequently found its way to concert and festival programmes at home and abroad.

Bacewicz’s oeuvre is now experiencing its revival. Audiences discover extremely engaging and intriguing sound solutions in her concertos, sonatas, symphonies, and smaller-scale works. Her music receives excellent recordings (for instance by BBC Symphony Orchestra) and is regularly performed. In 2024, her works were presented at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris, Stockholm’s SR Berwaldhallen, and the BOZAR in Brussels, among others. Bacewicz’s output is also a reflection of the age she lived in, marked by a move away from exuberant romanticism, by a search for beauty in classical forms, but also – by the avoidance of old conventional patterns. Her musical language is powerful, disciplined and consistent, but also sensitive in a feminine fashion. Her rich imagination as a composer reflects her artistic personality.

Bomsori Kim and NFM Wrocław Philharmonic

Grażyna Bacewicz was, for many years, the first performer of her own violin works, both chamber music and concertos, frequently presented in a duo with her brother Kiejstut. On 3 February 1950, she played her Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra – a piece featuring a virtuosic solo part and perfectly designed form – with Cracow Philharmonic Orchestra under Wacław Krzemiński. More than seventy years later, this composition will be presented in Bomsori Kim’s new performance arrangement on 7 March 2025 at 7 p.m. at the Witold Lutosławski National Forum of Music in Wrocław, as part of one of PWM Edition Eightieth Anniversary concerts. The solo part will be interpreted by the Korean artist, accompanied here by NFM Wrocław Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the best of its kind in Poland, with which Bomsori Kim also recorded her first album, Violin on Stage (Deutsche Grammophon, 2021). At their concert in March, the orchestra will be led by UK conductor Duncan Ward. Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra is the first of previously unpublished works by Grażyna Bacewicz, held in manuscript at the National Library of Poland in Warsaw, that are being restored to concert life by PWM Edition. Her other works will also successively be brought out by our publishing house.

© Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, photo: Bartek Barczyk 

The programme of the Wrocław concert also includes Bomsori’s interpretation of Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 35. The soloist will play a Guarneri del Gesù violin known as ‘ex-Moller’ (Cremona, ca 1725), kindly loaned by the Samsung Foundation of Culture in Seoul and The Stradivari Society of Chicago, Illinois.

Sounds of Poland. Bacewicz

The main role in this short film about Grażyna Bacewicz’s life and music is played by Bomsori Kim from South Korea, a graduate of Seoul National University and New York’s Juilliard School, who, as the composer’s Ambassador, traces back Bacewicz’s career. She discovers, among others, archive recordings featuring the Polish violinist, studies handwritten notes and comments in the music scores, and meets the artist’s closest family members.

I am greatly honoured to be able to act as ambassador of Grażyna Bacewicz’s music. Discovering her extremely expressive and passionate works is to me like an inspiring journey. During my work on the film and concerts, I have had the opportunity to gain more insights into her artistic vision, and I already know that my journey will abound in more new discoveries. I have a strong bond to Bacewicz. Her determination and independence are very close to my mind, and her works let me express myself fully as an artist and violinist, Bomsori Kim commented.

The film’s director Jakub Piątek made his debut at the Sundance Film Festival (US main independent movie festival) in 2023 with the full-length documentary Pianoforte, shown in cinemas in the United States, Great Britain, and Poland, among others. The production won public and critical acclaim, both in Poland and internationally. Proof of this recognition came with the ‘Eagle’ Polish Film Award (in the documentary film category) and the International Emmy Award (2024, in the category of Performing Arts).

The film dedicated to Grażyna Bacewicz is part of PWM Edition’s project ‘Sounds of Poland. Bacewicz’, which continues PWM’s long-time work on the promotion of Polish music worldwide. The project has been co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as part of the ‘Inspiring Culture’ programme.

We will successively present more events featuring Bomsori Kim as a promoter of Grażyna Bacewicz’s music. Please follow us on PWM’s website and the publisher’s social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X), as well as on Bomsori Kim’s website and her social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X).