9.11.2018 - 18.11.2018 Events, Music

XX International Chopin & Friends Festival in New York

The International Chopin & Friends Festival in New York is an annual festival organized by the New York Dance & Arts Innovations, Inc. showcasing artists of various disciplines inspired by Chopin’s legacy and working across a variety of media uniting traditional and contemporary art forms. 

This year’s festival opens with the Gala Concert: Compositions of Sound and Form on November 9, featuring Magdalena Filipczak on violin and Alice Chenyang Xu on piano, at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York. The evening will also feature an exhibition by the photographer Piotr Powietrzynski (three-time winner of Hasselblad Super Circuit, Austria, two-time winner of the Mazda Photo Contest in Japan, and winner of the International Photography Award in Los Angeles), curated by Katarzyna Gumpert. 

On November 10 at the Polish and Slavic Center, Architecture of Art: Compositions of Sound and Form will present sculpture by Bolek Ryzinski, and photography by Ahmed Wafik. The opening will feature Tio Lim Jazz band from Kraków with guest performer Lukas Wronski, with new compositions and improvisational jazz arrangements inspired by folk music from southern Poland.

On November 15 at the Jerome L. Green Science Center, New Vision: Vital Reality will present explorations of virtual reality art on the international stage, featuring works by Fang Daqi, Dream Adoption Society, Lin Jing, Laka Reacts, Meytar Moran, Alessandro Teoldi, and many others.

On November 16 at the Polish Consulate in New York, New Vision: Images of Sound will present posters by Aneta Kosin (curated by Katarzyna Gumpert), opening and a concert of masterpieces by Fryderyk Chopin and Henryk Górecki, selected by Chopin & Friends Music Director Jakub Polaczyk and performed by pianist Nicholas Kaponyas. Next, the multicultural American Four Corners Ensemble, directed by Chinese-American composer Shuying Li, will perform pieces by Chopin as well as contemporary composers, including Ye Leishuo, Marcel Chyrzynski, and Jakub Polaczyk. 

On November 17, the Polish Slavic Center will host Theater Panopticum & Guests: Woman’s Victory, featuring paintings by Uta Szczerba and photographs by Piotr Powietrzynski along with a performance of The Victory of Women, directed by Mieczyslaw Wojtas and adapted from a play by doctor and New York Polish-American activist Henryk Cioczek. Music will be provided by the Singers of Charming Disaster, Ellia Bisker (of Sweet Soubrette and the Funkrust Brass Band) and Jeff Morris (of Kotorino).

Closing out the festival on November 18 at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall will be Grand Finale: Celebration of Women on the Centennial of Women’s Right to Vote in Poland, produced by the Ars Activa Foundation and the Chopin Music Society of Montreal. The program will include masterpieces of Polish classical music dedicated to or composed by women, alongside female operatic arias and Broadway songs. These will include Chopin’s Piano Trio, Mazurkas, Songs and Nocturne, violin works by Henryk Wieniawski, Karol Szymanowski and Grazyna Bacewicz, beloved arias by Giacomo Puccini, Stanislaw Moniuszko, Ludomir Rózycki, and George Gershwin, and songs from musicals such as My Fair Lady, The Color Purple, and Anastasia. 

This musical tribute will feature pianists Kate Liu (Bronze Medal Winner and Audience Favorite of the last International Chopin Competition) and Andrew J. Yang (whom The Examiner calls “a prodigy, [running] the emotional gamut from brooding introspection to manic exuberance”), sopranos Iwona Kowalkowska, Katarzyna Sperczynska, and Majeste Pearson, cellist Junko Fujii, and violinist Nadia Monczak. 

Tickets are available here or at Carnegie 212-247-7800 or directly at the Carnegie Hall Box Office.

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