Like a Phoenix from the Ashes, after a one-year break, the Krzysztof Penderecki International Festival – Level 320 returns. It reemerges into a different reality, increasingly dominated by digital algorithms, where artificial intelligence (AI) “reigns supreme.”
This year’s twelfth edition of the Festival, AI REX, taking place from October 30 to November 7, is an attempt to explore the role of intelligent technologies in art.
The Festival’s very Patron – Krzysztof Penderecki – held a complex stance on the use of modern tools in the creative process. On the one hand, in the 1960s, he collaborated with the Polish Radio Experimental Studio, eagerly exploring its possibilities (his electronic work was even featured at the opening of the Munich Olympics). On the other hand, after being electrocuted in his youth, he harbored a fear of electricity and needed an operator to handle tape recorders. He never used a computer, writing his graphically beautiful scores by hand – with both hands.
These two approaches are reflected in the Festival program: the first two concerts – analog and nostalgic – and the final concert, following tradition, multimedia-based and interactive, employing artificial intelligence and holographic technology.
On October 30, the XII International Krzysztof Penderecki Festival – Level 320 will be inaugurated with a deeply atmospheric Missa Brevis concert in the underground St. Barbara Chapel of the Guido Mine in Zabrze. The Polish Radio Choir at the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music, conducted by Maciej Tworek – long-time assistant to the Festival Patron – will fill the subterranean sanctuary with the harmony of the most beautiful works by Bach and Penderecki, the very same pieces performed at the Maestro’s farewell ceremony at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Kraków. It will be a tribute to Krzysztof Penderecki in the year marking the fifth anniversary of his passing.
On November 6, a string quintet made up of musicians from the Vienna Philharmonic will perform 320 meters underground in the Guido Mine in Zabrze. It is here, where it all began, that the XII Krzysztof Penderecki International Festival – level 320 will symbolically be reborn – like a Phoenix from the ashes – in this extraordinary space. Symbolic is not only the place but also the program: it features the same compositions that were performed in 2013 at the inaugural edition of the Festival, in the presence of the Patron, as part of his 80th birthday celebrations. Known for their exceptional sound quality, the Viennese musicians will delight the audience with Antonín Dvořák’s highly melodic, dance-inspiring masterpiece of chamber music – the Quintet in G major – and with a metaphorical journey into Penderecki’s childhood through his quintet Leaves of an Unwritten Diary, whose Polish premiere took place here in Zabrze twelve years ago. A special highlight will be the performance of the extremely demanding, virtuosic Duo concertante for violin and double bass by Penderecki.
The final concert of the XII International Krzysztof Penderecki Festival – Level 320, taking place on November 7, will open with the Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus by Ludwig van Beethoven, and conclude with the joyful Symphony No. 8 by Antonín Dvořák, full of Slavic lyricism and vitality, performed by the Silesian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jurek Dybał, the Festival Director, a conductor well known to Silesian audiences and a musician of the Vienna Philharmonic.
This concert, titled UBU REX AI, is not only about music – it also features an animated film projection created by artificial intelligence, accompanying the orchestra’s live performance of the grotesque suite from the opera King Ubu by the Festival’s Patron. Expect holographic surprises as well!
Although Festival events have already taken place in Kraków and even Vienna, for the first time – thanks to cooperation with the Silesian Philharmonic – they will be held in the capital of the region, Katowice. This is something you have to see – and above all, hear. Come and experience the grand finale of the XII Krzysztof Penderecki International Festival – level 320 at the Silesian Philharmonic in Katowice.