KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI – Patron of the Festival
Krzysztof Penderecki was born on November 23, 1933, in Dębica. He studied composition under F. Skołyszewski and later at the Academy of Music in Kraków with A. Malawski and S. Wiechowicz. In 1959, Penderecki composed Tren for the Victims of Hiroshima, one of his most famous and frequently performed works, for which he received the UNESCO Prize in 1961. During this period, works such as Anaklasis (for Donaueschinger Musiktage), Polymorphia (commissioned by Norddeutscher Rundfunk Hamburg), and Fluorescences (for Donaueschinger Musiktage) were written, and in 1966, Passion According to St. Luke was completed. This major work in Penderecki’s career was commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Cathedral of Münster, where it was first performed on March 30, 1966. Its success brought Penderecki international fame and marked the beginning of a long series of achievements.
Penderecki is the recipient of numerous national and international artistic awards, including 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes at the 2nd Young Composers’ Competition organized by the Polish Composers’ Union (1959), the State Prize 1st class (1968, 1984), the Polish Composers’ Union Award (1970), the Herder Prize (1977), the Honegger Prize (1978), the Sibelius Prize (1983), the Premio Lorenzo Magnifico (1985), the Karl Wolf Foundation Prize (1987), several Grammy Awards (1987, 1998, 1998, 2000, 2016), the Grawemeyer Music Award (1992), the International Music Council UNESCO Prize (1961, 1993), the Best Living World Composer Award (2000), the Prince of Asturias Award (2001), the Praemium Imperiale (2004), the Viadrina Prize (2012), the Per Arte at Deum Award (2015), and the International Classical Music Awards (2012, 2014, 2016).
Penderecki holds honorary doctorates from dozens of universities, including those in Rochester (1972), Bordeaux (1979), Leuven (1979), Washington (1984), Belgrade (1985), Barcelona (1986), Madrid (1987), Poznań (1987), Warsaw (1993, 1994), Kraków (1994, 1998), Buenos Aires (1994), Glasgow (1995), Moscow (1999), Lucerne (2000), Leipzig (2003), New Haven (2003), Seoul (2005), Münster (2006), and Lviv (2015). He is an honorary member of several academies, including the Royal Academy of Music in London, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Musikaliska Akademien in Stockholm, the Academy of Arts in Berlin, the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, the Académie Internationale de Philosophie et de l’Art in Bern, the Académie Nationale des Sciences, Belles-lettres et Arts in Bordeaux, the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, the Academy for Performing Arts in Hong Kong, and the Musikverein für Steiermark in Graz.
From 1973 to 1978, Penderecki taught at Yale University in New Haven. From 1972 to 1987, he served as the rector of the Academy of Music in Kraków, and from 1987 to 1990, he was the artistic director of the Kraków Philharmonic. He was an honorary professor at numerous art academies, including the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the Music Conservatory in Beijing, the Academia Argentina de Música, the Latvian Academy of Music, the St. Petersburg State Conservatory, the Komitas State Conservatory in Yerevan, and the Würzburg University of Music.
In 1972, Penderecki began his conducting career, and since then, he has conducted some of the world’s greatest orchestras. He was the first guest conductor of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk Orchester in Hamburg and the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester in Leipzig. From 1992 to 2000, he was the Artistic Director of the Casals Festival in San Juan (Puerto Rico). In 1997, he became the Artistic Director of the Sinfonia Varsovia orchestra, and since 1998, he has been an advisor to the Beijing Music Festival and a guest conductor for the China Philharmonic Orchestra.
On July 11, 1998, Penderecki’s Credo premiered in Eugene, commissioned by the Oregon Bach Festival and Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart. A year later, a recording of Credo for the Hänssler label received the prestigious AFIM Indie Award. On June 7, 2000, Penderecki’s Sextet, commissioned by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, premiered in Vienna with Paul Meyer, Radovan Vlatković, Julian Rachlin, Yuri Bashmet, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Dmitri Alexeev. In 2001, he completed Concerto Grosso for Three Cellos and Orchestra, commissioned by the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. On May 9, 2002, Penderecki’s Piano Concerto Resurrection premiered at Carnegie Hall, performed by Emanuel Ax and the Philadelphia Orchestra. On June 26, 2005, Penderecki’s Eighth Symphony: Songs of Transience had its world premiere in Luxembourg.
On December 14, 2005, Penderecki was honored with Poland’s highest decoration, the Order of the White Eagle. On October 12, 2006, he was awarded the Order of the Three Stars in Riga. In April 2008, Penderecki received the Gold Medal from the Minister of Culture of Armenia and won the Orły 2008 Award for Best Film Music for Andrzej Wajda’s Katyn. On May 5, 2008, Penderecki conducted the world premiere of Winterreise Concerto for Horn and Orchestra in Bremen, with Radovan Vlatković as the soloist. On November 22, 2008, Penderecki’s Third String Quartet: Pages from an Unwritten Diary had its premiere during the Penderecki Festival in Warsaw. The quintet version of the composition premiered in 2013 at the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades, performed by the Talich Quartet and Jurek Dybał. In 2009, Penderecki received the Ordre de Mérite du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg and the Honorary Order from the President of the Republic of Armenia. In 2009, Penderecki composed Kaddish for the 65th anniversary of the liquidation of the Łódź Ghetto. He was invited to the Honorary Committee of the Chopin Year 2010 celebrations at the Polish embassies in Lisbon, Tokyo, and Rome.
On January 14, 2011, the world premiere of A Sea of Dreams Came Over Me… Songs of Reflection and Nostalgia for soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone, choir, and orchestra took place in Warsaw, commissioned by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute for the conclusion of the Chopin Year. On March 7, 2011, Robert Matthew Festing, the Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, awarded Penderecki the Grand’ Croix de L’Ordre Pro Merito Melitensi medal. On March 9, 2011, Duo Concertante for violin and double bass, written for Anne-Sophie Mutter and Roman Patkoló, was premiered in Hanover. On March 31, 2012, Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion was staged by Grzegorz Jarzyna in Alvernia Studios near Kraków. The premiere of Penderecki’s Double Concerto for Violin and Viola to mark the 200th anniversary of the Vienna Musikverein took place at the Musikverein in Vienna on October 22, 2012, with Janine Jansen and Julian Rachlin as the soloists.
In January 2013, Penderecki’s Missa Brevis, commissioned by the Bach Archiv Leipzig for the 800th anniversary of the St. Thomas Choir in Leipzig, was premiered. A new version of his opera The Devils of Loudun had its premiere in Copenhagen on February 12, 2013. The year 2013 marked the composer’s 80th birthday, with numerous concerts and festivals celebrating his music, including in St. Petersburg, Wrocław, Vilnius, Lviv, Kraków, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Ohrid Festival, the Marlboro Music Festival, and more. Performances also took place in Kosice, Berlin, Bonn, Hanover, Ravello, Assisi, Budapest, Minsk, Prague, Beijing, New York, Boston, Yale University, Seoul, Caracas, and Yerevan. A Penderecki Festival was held in Warsaw from November 17 to 23, 2013, with leading artists such as Lorin Maazel, Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev