Eastman honors Polish composer

Penderecki

olish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki is schedule to visit the Eastman School of Music beginning February 23 to take part in a weeklong festival held in his honor. The internationally renowned Penderecki, who received an honorary degree from Eastman in 1972, will have a full schedule that includes a composition master class and symposium for students and faculty and two public concerts.

"The School is thrilled to host the visit of this world-renowned figure, whose music is filled with vitality, adventure, and a sense of the monumental," says interim Composition Chair David Liptak.

Born in 1933, Penderecki began his musical career as an accomplished violinist, pianist, and composer, having graduated from the Krakow Conservatory at the age of 18. After a surprise win of the top three prizes at the 1959 Warsaw Competition of Young Composers, Penderecki embarked on a career as conductor and composer that has brought him critical acclaim and numerous international awards.

Highlights of the upcoming festival include two concerts--one on Tuesday, February 24, and another on Friday, February 27--that will feature some of Penderecki's most influential works. During the February 24 performance at 8 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall, Eastman faculty will perform works selected by Penderecki. The Rochester premiere of Violin Sonata #1 (1953) performed by Oleh Krysa, violin, and Tatiana Tchekina, piano, will open the concert, which also includes Cadenza for Solo Viola (1984) and the Rochester premiere of Sextet (2000).

The orchestral concert on February 27 at 8 p.m. in the Eastman Theatre will feature the Eastman Philharmonia conducted by Brad Lubman and Penderecki. Lubman conducts the concert's first half, which opens with the 1959-61 Threnody For the Victims of Hiroshima, a 1961 UNESCO Award-winning work. The program moves to the full orchestra for the 1966 De Natura Sonoris No. 1 and then to The Dream of Jacob (1974), which Lubman says "seems to cross the alleged boundaries between [Penderecki's] works from the 1960s and more traditional means, while maintaining the mystical atmosphere of the biblical quote from which the piece gets its title."

Both concerts are free and open to the public. For details, visit www.rochester.edu/Eastman/news/?id=80.

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