The festival weekend of the 34th Musica Polonica Nova will open with a mini monographic concert by Artur Zagajewski. This is another event of this year's Musica Polonica Nova, during which we will leave the concert halls and listen to music in the foyer space. The composer will perform in a duo with Maciej Koczur, curator of the 71/42 project.
Artur Zagajewski – this year’s festival resident – is currently one of the leading composers in our country. He comes from the generation of the 1970s, which in his case is a good indicator of his aesthetic orientation. Jan Topolski was certainly right to see elements of ironic postmodernism in his work. Zagajewski’s distinctive feature is his willingness to draw inspiration from rock music, both in the punk and progressive genres.
It is the progressive rock references that will be manifest in his suite made of Danses Polonaises composed in 2020 for Kwadrofonik and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE written last year. The first piece was premiered in Germany at the last edition of the famous Donaueschinger Musiktage. The composer does shy from political references in it: he uses recordings from counterdemonstrations against one of the equality marches organized in Poland, and in his commentary to the work he quotes the famous news tickers from Poland’s state-owned TV. The ecstatic LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE with a persistent pulse was presented for the first time by the Nowicki Duo in November 2023 at the Kraków Audio Art Festival.
