Kilar | Glass tour in New York

This June, Sinfonietta Cracovia, one of the premiere chamber orchestras of Europe, will present to a New York audience and audiences across the northeast, their flagship project combining film music and concert music of two great composers Wojciech Kilar and Philip Glass, as part of the international tour Kilar 90.  

The concerts will feature performances with the young Polish pianist and composer Aleksander Dębicz, and the orchestra’s principal conductor, Katarzyna Tomala-Jedynak.

After the success of the original Kilar | Glass concept at the Krakow Film Music Festival in Poland, the orchestra took the idea on tour to five Belgian cities under the baton of Dirk Brossé – conductor, composer, and musical director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia – as well as presenting the program at the inaugural concert of the prestigious Tenerife International Film Music Festival (Fimucité). Without exception, this program that combines the music of Kilar and Glass received standing ovations wherever it was presented.

In a central idea of the program, Sinfonietta Cracovia plays a variety of works Kilar and Glass’s - both concert music and film music - to highlight commonalities between the composers.  The portrait that emerges, that of a composer’s voice as applied to both realms of concert as well as commercial music as well as commercial, show’s how pronounced the musical identity of each composer is. Sinfonietta Cracovia will give three performances across the northeast including (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City on June 1, 2023, a concert presented by The Glass House in New Canaan Connecticut, as well as in a castle, Hammond Castle, in Gloucester Massachusetts.

Wojciech Kilar composed a great amount of film music and is known for many masterpieces of Polish cinema. He is perhaps best known abroad as the composer of a number of prominent big budget films such as Jane Campion’s “The Portrait of a Lady” and above all Francis Ford Coppola’s enduring 1992 classic “Dracula.”

The name of the Kilar 90 project comes from the 90th anniversary of Kilar’s birth. Kilar was a composer who combined various worlds: concert and film music, classical concert works, avant-garde works, as well as a substantial body of sacred music. The idea emerge to combine Kilar’s work - and his similar artistic path, with the work of Philip Glass who ultimately managed, like Kilar, to interact in multiple domains of musical creativity.  

Glass, while known initially in the 1960s and 70s for his work in the avant-garde,  was nominated for three Academy Awards for “Notes on a Scandal,” “The Hours,” and “Kundun.” The concert will feature the performances of soloists Aleksander Dębicz (piano) and his original composition, Sideways, a piece for piano and chamber orchestra.  Glass and Kilar both studied with the most famous teacher of the 20th Century, Nadia Boulanger.  They both scored Dracula films, and they both interacted in the realm of so-called high culture and popular culture.

This unprecedented event is the result of institutional support: thetour is co-organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute within the "Programme of events accompanying the celebration of Wojciech Kilar's 90th birthday (2022) and the 10th anniversary of his death (2023)", Polish Cultural Institute New York, and PWM Edition. This part of Kilar 90 Tour has a special support of the City of Cracow. The promotion of Polish culture and the universal message of joy of art (both film and concert music) will be thus expressed in the musical dialogue: from Kilar to Glass.

Sinfonietta Cracovia

Presents

GLASS KILAR

Katarzyna Tomala-Jedynak, conductor

Aleksander Dębicz, piano

Program

Philip Glass – Suite from The Hours (2002)

Philip Glass – Suite from Dracula (1931)

Wojeich Kilar – Orawa (1986)

Wojeich Kilar – Certain Light from The Portrait of a Lady (1996)

Wojeich Kilar – The Brides from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Aleksander Dębicz – Sideways

Aleksander Dębicz – piano

Katarzyna Tomala-Jedynak – conductor

Sinfonietta Cracovia

Partners and patrons of the tour

The tour is co-organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute within the "Programme of events accompanying the celebration of Wojciech Kilar's 90th birthday (2022) and the 10th anniversary of his death (2023)"

Polish Cultural Institute New York

PWM Edition

Supertrain Records

City of Cracow