I think that regular participants of our festival will easily notice the ideas that connect this year’s edition with the previous ones. We return to the concept of networking, we again consider the relationships that contemporary music enters into, adding more layers. We are experimenting with the form of the festival again and challenging its traditional formats. When programming this year’s edition of MPN, we tried to abandon linear thinking and give recipients the freedom to create their own participation plan. This will allow listeners to have more individual, intimate relationships with music. Instead of a series of concerts, we have interconnected points. This idea will be best visible during the Saturday culmination, consisting of interwoven events in various spaces of the National Forum of Music venue.

Relationships, connections, bonds – this is, as always, an important topic for us. In this context, the series of mini-concerts 71/42 will be particularly noteworthy, beginning each day of the festival. How to understand the title of this series? These are simply the area codes of two cities: Wrocław and Łódź, symbolising the combined efforts of two music centres. As part of this project, students of the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź will present their works created as part of a project authored by conductor Maciej Koczur. These will be inclusive concerts, addressed to a wide audience. The performers invited to co-create the festival include: Spółdzielnia Muzyczna contemporary ensemble, Ensemble OMN, NeoQuartet, NFM Leopoldinum String Trio and LutosAir Quintet. The programme also features a project by young composers combining electronic and organ music and a concert organised by the Polish Composers’ Union.

We have always wanted MPN to be a festival that audaciously builds relationships with other, non-musical spaces of the arts. This year we have begun cooperation with the Polish Theatre in the Underground in Wrocław. Thanks to this, we have a wonderful accompanying event in the programme – the play Finnegans W/Fake. Wojtek Blecharz’s music plays a key role in this performance, but the sound (sonorism) of the text is equally important.

A special place in this edition is occupied by two composers-in-residence of the festival: Marta Śniady and Artur Zagajewski. Not just because they make great music. They both daringly use pop and subcultural elements, crossing the boundaries of genres and artistic disciplines. In Artur’s music we can find punk rock rebellion, but also inspirations from architecture and urban planning, thanks to which his music becomes a perfect commentary on modern times. Whereas Marta draws from a wide range of pop culture and keeps her finger on the pulse of the latest trends, without losing her clearly individual character.

MPN also stands for curiosity about the world. We do not have ready answers, but we like to ask questions, dig deeper and observe the reality that surrounds us in the era of technological acceleration and cultural changes. At the same time, give something back, provide the audience with new impressions and perception strategies.

Join us!

Paweł Hendrich
Artistic Director
Musica Polonica Nova