In addition to the Lutosławski originals, the display included also rare scores from mid-30s (by Grażyna Bacewicz and Stanisław Skrowaczewski), manuscripts by Tadeusz Baird (over 50 years old), Aleksander Tansman, Roman Maciejewski, Szymon Laks, Roman Palester, and many of their younger colleagues. The manuscripts were accompanied by printed scores and recordings - so people in attendance could learn about the music and listen to what they saw. The whole collection is not complete yet, it continues to grow through new donations made by other composers contacted by Dr. Trochimczyk. This stage in donations drive will end in April 2000, when another, smaller exhibition of recent gifts will be held.

Let me start with describing some examples - young musicians, graduate students in the Thornton School of Music, who volunteered to perform in the Concert of 20th Century Polish Music. Ladies first: Adrianna Lis has played the flute since childhood and won numerous prizes in international competitions. After being accepted to study at USC, she became the member of the most elite group of wind players, the "Scholarship Quintet" where she played for one year. It was a very special recognition of her talent as the best flutist in the whole School (her GPA? 4.0, perfect!). Her version of two lively movements from Szeligowski's Sonata for Flute and Piano amazed the audience with the dexterity of her fingers. Marzena Wolna (who because of a hand injury could not perform in the concert) - the first bassoon in USC Thornton Orchestra, first bassoon in Debut orchestra, winner of every orchestral competition for her instrument that she ever entered. I hope that Polish -Americans in California will have an opportunity of listening to her music in the future.

					Now the gentlemen: Jan Jakub Bokun, clarinetist and conductor whose graduation concert in April 2001 will feature Polish music, and for whom a professorship of clarinet in the Wroclaw Academy of Music is already waiting. Bokun's two solo CDs have received rave reviews in international music press. His "stint" as the clarinetist for Krystian Zimerman's Polish Festival Orchestra (traveling around the world and recording the two Chopin Piano Concerti) is yet another proof of his amazing talents (GPA? Of course, 4.0).

For the concert he selected a piece by Tadeusz Baird, the most romantic of Polish modernist composers, an artist whose talent was and is, not known well enough in the U.S. 2 Kaprysy delighted with their "capricious" nature and the virtuosity of performance.

Michaż Sobus (double bass) and Krzysztof Szmanda (percussion) have just been accepted to the Thornton School and will have to prove their talents. Already both musicians play the "first" parts in the Thornton ensembles and perform in other orchestras based in Los Angeles. During the concert Mr. Sobus performed a difficult and engaging work by Tadeusz Wielecki (the current director of the Warsaw Autumn Contemporary Music Festival). Mr. Szmanda was accompanied by a pianist in 4 Preludes for vibraphone and piano, and by another percussionist in Scintilla for two marimbas. Both works were composed by Marta Ptaszynska, Poland's most eminent woman composer who is now full professor of composition at the University of Chicago. Ptaszynska is a percussionist herself and understands the nature of her instruments. The two marimbas at one point quoted some music from Chopin - so that the greatest Polish composer could be present in this concert as well.

I have not forgotten, but left for later, two names of wonderful Polish musicians who are not connected to the Thornton School but instead are active in Los Angeles: Yolanta Tensor, soprano (who moved here from Chicago, interrupting a budding solo career) and Roza Kostrzewska-Yoder (who studied in Harvard and other prestigious institutions) and now devotes most of her time to teaching and nurturing young talents.