Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

Opole Philharmonic of Poland
BOGUSLAW DAWIDOW, MUSIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR
JACEK KORTUS, PIANO

Thursday, February 24, 2011, at 7:30pm | Foellinger Great Hall

Great Hall Series | In the aftermath of six brutal years of sabotage, bombings, disease, hunger, and labor camps, the Opole Philharmonic of Poland was founded. The German invasion in 1939 commenced an eradication of culture in Poland: scholars were jailed, artists were exiled, schools were closed, museums were shuttered, and irreplaceable art works were destroyed. Never surrendering, the Polish people took their enthusiasm and artistry underground, keeping them alive through renegade concerts and secret exhibits until they could be shared again with the world.

By 1947, the city of Opole’s cultural institutions had begun rebuilding, and its people were committed to forming the Opole Philharmonic of Poland to showcase the country’s music—from operas to folk songs to the Romantic strains of Chopin—that had been quietly nurtured during the war. Music director and conductor Boguslaw Dawidow, who established and leads the Chopin Chamber Orchestra and took the helm of the Russian National Academic Symphony Orchestra for eight years, directs the Opole Philharmonic of Poland on its first transcontinental tour of the United States.

This ensemble opens with the majestic Overture to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Warmly expressive Jacek Kortus, the youngest finalist in the 2005 International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition, will then envelop you with the velvet fantasy of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11. To conclude this night, the orchestra will embody the nobility of Beethoven’s triumphant Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67.



Patron Sponsors:
Dixie and Evan Dickens
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Patron Co-sponsors:
Joan and Peter Hood
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