“This year we are celebrating the Year of Polish Romanticism, the anniversary of the publication of Adam Mickiewicz’s ‘Ballads and Romances’, and it is Romanticism that is the keynote of this year’s ‘Chopin and his Europe’ festival. Without eminent poets, painters, composers and musicians of the Romantic era, Poland might not have survived”, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture and National Heritage Professor Piotr Gliński during a press conference opening the 18th International Festival ‘Chopin and his Europe’ at the Fryderyk Chopin National Institute in Warsaw.

This year’s Festival will last until 31 August and will consist of 34 concerts. In addition to the works of Fryderyk Chopin, the programme includes leading works by other composers of the Polish Romanticism: Józef Władysław Krogulski, Karol Kurpiński, August Fryderyk Duranowski and Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński.

There will also be Romantic German, French, Czech, Scandinavian and English music.

The concerts will be performed live in the most important venues in Warsaw, such as the National Philharmonic, the Grand Theatre – National Opera or the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of the Polish Radio, but also streamed on the Internet and by Polish Radio II.

The stars of the Festival will include the winners of the International Chopin Competition: Yulianna Avdeeva, Bruce Liu or Kate Liu and other piano masters. Internationally renowned orchestras will also perform: {oh!} Historical Orchestra, Europa Galante, Collegium 1704, Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, National Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Beethoven Academy Orchestra, as well as the Belcea Quartet and the Apollon Musagète Quartett. Fabio Biondi will return to Warsaw, this time to perform and simultaneously record Stanislaw Moniuszko’s ‘Spectres’ and ‘Nijola’ with soloists, the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Choir and the Europa Galante Orchestra.

Adrian Andrzejewski