Sunday, October 29, 2023 at 6:00pm
Merkin Hall
Chopin & Friends Festival
129 West 67th Street
New York, NY 10023
Tickets
Monday, October 30, 2023 at 7:00pm
Consulate General of the Republic of Poland
233 Madison Avenue (Jan Karski Corner)
New York, NY 10016
Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 7:00pm
Park Ballroom
1232 Park Street in downtown Paso Robles
Paso Robles, CA 93446
Tickets
Sunday, November 5, 2023, Time tbc
Colburn School of Music
200 S Grand Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tuesday, November 7, 2023 at 7:30pm
Polish Home Association
1714 18th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122
Tickets
Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 3:00 pm
10th Annual Paderewski Festival of Raleigh
North Carolina Museum of Art
2110 Blue Ridge Road
Raleigh, NC 27607
Tickets
Pianist Mateusz Krzyżowski, winner of the Paderewski International Piano Competition and semi-finalist at the 2021 International Chopin Competition embarks on the debut U.S. tour with concerts in New York, Paso Robles, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Raleigh, NC. Mateusz Krzyżowski will perform works by Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Fryderyk Chopin, and Karol Szymanowski. The pianist begins his U.S. tour with a performance at the opening gala of the XXV International Chopin & Friends Festival at Merkin Hall in New York on Sunday, October 29th, followed by a recital at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York on Monday, October 30th. The tour continues on the West Coast with concerts in Paso Robles, Los Angeles, and Seattle. He is scheduled to return to the U.S. in May of 2024 for concerts in Miami, Florida.
Mateusz Krzyżowski’s program will include works by Ignacy Jan Paderewski, including the Légende and Un Moment musical Op. 16, and Sarabande, Op. 14; Karol Szymanowski’s late romantic Four Etudes, Op. 4, composed in 1902, and Four Mazurkas, Op. 50, the latter based on the folk melodies from the Tatra Highlands and composed during Szymanowski’s long sojourns in Zakopane in the 1920s.
Mateusz Krzyżowski also selected several iconic compositions by Frederic Chopin, including the Ballade in G minor, Op. 23, Three Mazurkas, Op. 56, and the Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53. Although Chopin never explicitly linked his Op. 23 with Adam Mickiewicz’s poetry, the Ballade’s rich and vivid musical narrative instantly brought literary associations to Parisian audiences who first heard this work in 1835, only a few years after Chopin settled in the French capital. Dating from 1844, the Three Mazurkas, Op. 56 represent Chopin’s mature and deeply felt reflections on one of Poland’s most popular folk dances. Written only two years earlier, Chopin’s Polonaise Op. 53 has been called “Heroic” by the audiences for its glittering splendor and noble grandeur wrapped in rich and pianistically challenging textures. Artur Rubinstein called this work, “the composition that is closest to my heart.”
Pianist Mateusz Krzyżowski is the Ambassador of Culture for the City of Tychy. He is also the First Prize winner at the 2022 Paderewski International Piano Competition in Bydgoszcz, Poland. At the same competition Mateusz Krzyżowski was also recognized with several special prizes, including the Best Performance of a Piano Concerto Prize, as well as invitations to appear in solo recitals and as soloist with orchestras in the most prestigious concert halls in the world. Earlier this year, the pianist won the First Prize at the Warsaw Piano Grand Prix Competition and qualified for the finals of this competition to be held in Dubai in 2024.
Mateusz Krzyżowski is also the First Prize winner at the 2021 Artur Rubinstein in Memoriam Young Pianists’ Competition, the Second Prize winner at the Karol Szymanowski Competition in Katowice, and the winner of the 2022 Talent Week scholarship award at the Paderewski Center in Kąśna Dolna, Poland. In addition to these honors, Mateusz Krzyżowski also represented Poland at the semi-final round of the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. He is also a scholarship recipient of Ministry of Culture and National Heritage program “Young Poland,” and grant recipient from the Jerzy Semkow Foundation, the Marshal of the Silesian Voivodship, the National Children Fund, and the “Tychy-Dobre Miejsce” Foundation.
Mateusz Krzyżowski’s musical education began in his hometown of Tychy at the Felix Rybicki Music School in the class of Bożena Furmańska. He continued his education at the Karol Szymanowski State General Music School in Katowice under the tutelage of Lubow Nawrocka and Sebastian Nawrocki. In 2023 he graduated from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in the class of Joanna Lawrynowicz-Just.
Mateusz Krzyżowski’s interpretations endeavor to convey the composers’ intentions as accurately as possible. Filtering them through his own sensibilities leads to truly unique artistic experiences for the performer’s audiences. Krzyżowski’s probing musical readings can be heard on three CD recordings, Peine et Plaisir (published by the Opus Label), as well as Interwar Retrospections and The Most Beautiful Songs issued by Sarton Records.
Besides making recordings, Krzyżowski appeared as soloist with orchestras in Poland and toured France, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Ukraine, Slovakia, and Hungary, partnering with such noted conductors as Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk, Kai Bumann, Jakub Chrenowicz, Jurek Dybał, Alexander Humala, Michał Klauza, Marek Moś, Wojciech Rodek, Marek Wroniszewski, and Jan Miłosz Zarzycki, among others.