Stanisław Skrowaczewski and Dorothy Ditmer, Administrative Manager for the School of Music and the driving force behind the Maestro's visit to L.A., at the Special Collection Room in Doheny Library.

Among the many highlights of his visit, Maestro Skrowaczewski delivered the 2004 Paderewski Lecture for the Polish Music Center. The September 15th event, held in the comfortable neo-Romanesque interior of United University Church, was moderated by Larry Livingston, the former dean of the USC School of Music, and featured performances of music by Paderewski and Skrowaczewski.

The program opened with Paderewski's Cracovienne Fantastique for piano, performed by Marek Zebrowski, Program Director and Curator of the Polish Music Center. Afterwards, Maestro Skrowaczewski spoke at length about his life in music, sharing with the gathered audience many fascinating insights on his international career (now spanning over 50 years), his love of symphonic works by Bruckner and Szymanowski, and his substantial output as a composer.

Following his lecture, three current and former USC students—Danielle Nesmith, Lauren Chipman, and Jakub Omsky—performed selections from Skrowaczewski's 1991 String Trio for violin, viola and cello. In preparation for this performance, the ensemble was coached by Professor Peter Marsh, Director of USC Thornton Chamber Music Program, as well as by the composer. Maestro Skrowaczewski seemed very satisfied with the spirited reading of this lively and virtuoso work, and the audience rewarded young musicians with a thunderous applause.

    A gathering of friends of Polish music: (left to right) Dr Stefan and Mrs. Wanda Wilk, Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Paulina Kapuścińska, Dorothy Ditmer, Phil Ditmer, Drs. Zbigniew and Zofia Petrovich

The following evening, September 16th, Stanisław Skrowaczewski conducted the USC Thornton Symphony Orchestra at Bovard Auditorium. The sold-out crowd heard an unforgettable performance of Skrowaczewski's Concerto for Orchestra, a darkly dramatic and intensely personal two-movement work that filled the first half of the program. After the intermission, Skrowaczewski ably led the young USC players in a dashingly romantic interpretation of Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, concluding an evening of music to remember.

Another special event in connection with Maestro Skrowaczewski's visit was organized by the Modjeska Art and Culture Club of Los Angeles. The hosts for the evening, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Kolodziey, opened their hospitable home to well over 150 club members and special guests who delighted in Maestro Skrowaczewski's recollections of his youth in Lwów, and his early career in post-war Poland where, after his impressive debut as a young conductor in Wrocław, he was appointed as Music Director in Katowice, Kraków, and Warsaw.

During his visit in Los Angeles, Maestro Skrowaczewski also visited the recently opened Disney Hall, gave a special interview for Jim Svejda at KUSC-FM Radio, met with the USC Thornton School of Music Dean Robert Cutietta and several members of the faculty, and visited the Polish Music Center (pictured at right) and its manuscript collection held at the Special Collections Room of the Doheny Library.

  
Umberto Giordano          Mariusz Trelinski

International Chopin & Friends Festival is an annual festival organized by New York Dance and Arts Innovations, Inc. in various cultural institutions throughout New York and beyond. It is a five-week festival of the arts, celebrating the global legacy of Chopin uniting the traditional and the modern, the national and the universal. The Honorary Patron of the festival is the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York. The Gala Inauguration will be Saturday 16 October 2004 at the Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall at 2pm. The event will feature Polish artists Katarzyna Duda, violinist, and Miroslaw Feldgebel, pianist, performing works by Tadeusz Paciorkiewicz, Dmitri Shostakovich, Henryk Wieniawski, Maurice Ravel, Nicolo Paganini, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, George Gershwin and Pablo de Sarasate. For information about this and all other events of the Festival, visit www.nydai.org/festival_intro.html.

This month, Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic joined by winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Olga Kern, begin this year's U.S. tour. Their programs will consist of some combination of the following: KILAR Orawa, CHOPIN Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor (Op. 11), PENDERECKI Polymorphia, BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C minor (Op. 68), TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4, and RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 3. The orchestra will have 23 concerts across the U.S. For dates and venues of each concert, visit www.polishculture-nyc.org.

Scholars of Polish music from around the world will be convening in Berlin for the "Poland in their Hearts—Composing Abroad" International symposium from 21-24 October 2004. The symposium will be held at the Universität der Künste. Several friends of the Polish Music Center will be presenting, including Joseph A. Herter, Stojowski scholar, choral conductor, and frequent contributor to the Polish Music Newsletter and Journal, and Teresa Chylinska, Szymanowski scholar and author of both vols. 5 & 7 of the Polish Music History Series. Composers covered include Chopin, Panufnik, Tansman, Wienawski, Moniuszko, and others.

The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA) is a Polish-American non-profit organization located in New York City and supported exclusively by the public, its members and friends. Founded in 1942, it has become the leading center of learning and source of information about Poland's history and culture in the United States. It is also a research center and a disseminator of knowledge about the Polish-American ethnic group and its role in America.

Conductor Piotr Gajewski is urging young Polonian musicians to participate in the 2005 High School Summer String Institute in Wash. DC. The National Philharmonic created the Summer String Institutes to nurture the talent and skills of young musicians and to encourage their continued participation in classical music now and throughout their lives. At the Institutes, students perform a variety of orchestral music and have the increasingly rare opportunity to study chamber music literature.

A Singing Ambivalence: American Immigrants between Old World and New, 1830-1930
ISBN 0-87338-794-5. Victor Greene.
A Singing Ambivalence is a comprehensive examination of the ways in which nine immigrant groups—Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, Eastern European Jews, Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Chinese, and Mexicans—responded to their news lives in the United States through music. Each group's songs reveal an abiding concern over leaving thief loved ones and homeland and an anxiety about adjusting to a new society. But accompanying these disturbing feelings was an excitement about the possibilities of becoming wealthy and about looking forward to a democratic and free society.

Distinguished historian Victor Greene surveys an extensive body of songs of known ad unknown origins that comment on the problems immigrants face and reveal the wide range of responses the newcomers made to the radical changes in their new lives in America. His selection of lyrics provides useful capsules of expression that clarify the ways in which immigrants defined themselves and staked out their claims for acceptance in American society. But whatever their common and specific themes, they reveal an ambivalence over their coming to America and a pessimism about achieving their goals.

At Hanka's Table
ISBN: 1891105094. Hanka Sawka.
At Hanka's Table is the story of a remarkable Polish-American family revealed through food, history, personal narrative and art. Exiles from Communist Poland, Hanka and her internationally known artist husband Jan Sawka arrived in New York City in 1977 with a few dollars, a couple of suitcases and a toddler. They were about to embark on a life filled with art, adventure and exotic foods.

Polskie instytucje za granica: przewodnik po zbiorach archiwalnych
[Polish Institutions Abroad: A Guide to Archives]
By Anna Krochmal
Published by Rada Dziedzictwa Archiwalnego [Archival Heritage Council], Warsaw 2004
ISBN 83-89115-15-8
In Polish with Preface in English

During an exciting and challenging program in July, pianists Rebecca Jeffers and Angela Carson performed Esitanza by Joanna Bruzdowicz (the 2003 Paderewski Lecturer). The "Piano Duet Festival by the Sea" is an annual concert featuring this duo of professors from Oregon State University, held at the St. Peter the Fisherman Lutheran Church in Lincoln City, OR. This year's theme was "First Hearings: New Works for Piano Duet", which included, in addition to the Bruzdowicz, several works by Hungarian composers as well as a world premiere of a piece by American composer Libby Larsen.

Henryk Melcer (1869-1928): Chamber Works
AP0111

Aeolia 1001

This is the, "first time that Paderewski's playing can be heard without disturbing noises and with a perfect, modern sound," wrote Rita Rosenstiel, former curator of the Paderewski Museum in Morges, Switzerland in her letter which accompanied a copy of the new release on which she collaborated. We gratefully acknowledge the donation to the Polish Music Center of this edition produced by the Pianola Institute of London.

John Farmer of the Classic Record Collector compared these Aeolian Reproductions of Paderewski's Duo Art rolls with the pianist's early HMV 78 pm discs. He found that these latest CDs, "give an excellent and faithful account of his style of playing with modern sound," which is clear and realistic throughout.

This new edition includes several works which have never been published commercially. They include two Chopin Ballades, a Mazurka, Nocturne and third Scherzo, the Schubert/Liszt Soiree de vienne and Paderewski's own, Caprice genre Scarlatti and Legende."

As I listened to the recording I was taken back to a night in 1938 when I actually saw and heard the great Paderewski perform in concert in Detroit. As a 17-year old I had to take a street car and a bus to get to the concert. I returned home long past midnight with both parents waiting up for me— fearing the worst. And I was in seventh heaven, mesmerized by what I had seen and heard. The concert was a huge success, the hall was filled with people sitting in the aisles and the audience wouldn't let go of this great man with the long hair. They demanded and he played encore after encore! It was a real happening!

The first CD contains Chopin's works and five of Paderewski's own. The second CD contains his famous renditions of Beethoven's, Moonlight Sonata, music by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Debussy, Shelling and Liszt. No one could play Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsodie as he did! It ends with his most famous piece, the Menuet. I remember as a child that every piano student's aspiration was to be able to play this Menuet. THAT was a mark of achievement!

Not only is the sound of this recording authentic and real, but one can immediately hear that this is a unique artist performing. Every little nuance is discerned and the sheer pianism is at once dazzling and exhilarating. As John Farmer wrote, "Paderewski's style of playing is instantly recognizable. As would be expected, there is much use of rubato and he underlines and accentuates pleasing harmonies and musical phrases just as the great actors of his period made the most of their lines. Paderewski's playing is poetic, lyrical and in good taste. His famous mannerisms, left hand before right hand, broken chords are rarely intrusive and his finger work in fast single note passages is outstanding. This style of playing suited to 19th century romantic music and, in its time, was hugely successful with audiences."

I also like this style. The liberties he took with tempo rubato and the broken chords provide a more mellow effect. It is important not only from a historical perspective, but simply for its enjoyable aspects.

I highly recommend this new masterpiece of a release. For more information see www.pianola.org.

• 3 October 1882 - Karol SZYMANOWSKI, composer, pianist, (d. 29 March 1937)
• 3 October 1923 - Stanisław SKROWACZEWSKI, composer and conductor
• 4 October 1910 - Eugenia UMIŃSKA, violinist
• 9 October 1924 - Regina SMENDZIANKA, pianist
• 10 October 1910 - Henryk SWOLKIEŃ, music critic, composer
• 16 October 1867 - Ferdynand HOESICK, music critic, publisher (d. 13 April 1941)
• 18 October 1879 - Grzegorz FITELBERG, conductor, violinist, composer (d. 10 June 1953)
• 20 October 1819 - Karol MIKULI, pianist, composer, conductor, Chopin's student (d. 21 May 1897)
• 25 October 1868 - Michał ŚWIERZYŃSKI, composer, conductor (d. 30 June 1957)
• 30 October 1904 - Alfred GRADSTEIN, composer, activist (d. 29 September 1954)

• 1 October 1990 - Andrzej KRZANOWSKI, composer, accordion player (b. 1951)
• 1 October 1861 - Tekla Justyna KRZYŻANOWSKA, pianist, Chopin's mother (b. September 1780)
• 7 October 1854 - Adolf CICHOWSKI, Chopin's friend, officer and civil servant (b.1794)
• 17 October 1849 - Fryderyk CHOPIN, composer and pianist (b. 1 March (also listed as February 22) 1810)
• 17 October 1938 - Aleksander MICHAŁOWSKI, pianist, composer, Tausig's student (b. 5 May 1851)
• 18 October 1962 - Maria SZCZEPAŃSKA, musicologist (b. 13 May 1902)
• 21 October 1837 - Michał Józef GUZIKOW, folk musician (b. 1806)
• 27 October 1991 - Andrzej PANUFNIK, composer and conductor (b. 24 September 1914)
• 30 October 1912 - Jan Karol GALL, composer and conductor (b. 18 August 1856)
• 31 October 1952 - Adolf CHYBIŃSKI, musicologist (b. 29 April 1880)