october 04, 2018 /Thursday/
18.30 hours Hall “M-Ro G.Atanasov”
Conductor: Jan Milos Zarzicki (Poland) Soloist: Sava Vutov – piano
Program:
Jan Stefani – Overworld “Krakowski and Mountains”
R. Schumann – Concerto for piano and orchestra, op. 54
L. van Beethoven – Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”
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Jan Miłosz Zarzycki
Jan Miłosz Zarzycki is Managing and Artistic Director of the Witold Lutosławski Chamber Philharmonic in Łomża. He is also a Professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. He is a prize winner of international competitions in Italy, Spain and Hungary.
He studied conducting with Marek Pijarowski at the Music Academy in Wrocław, gaining a diploma with distinction in 1994. He continued his studies in Vienna and Berlin, under the guidance of such famous conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur and Claudio Abbado. Before taking up conducting, he had graduated in violin performance from the Music Academy in Katowice (in 1990) and won several awards at violin competitions. He also finished Post-graduate Studies for Artists and Culture Animators at the Department of Management of Warsaw University.
In 1988 he became Music Director of the Jeunesses Musicales Student Chamber Orchestra at the Music Academy in Katowice, and in 1992-1993 he worked closely with the State Opera in Wrocław. He was one of the two First Prize winners at the First Witold Lutosławski National Conductors’ Competition in Białystok in 1994, receiving also three special awards (including the Award from the Orchestra). Having won Third Prize at the 7th Arturo Toscanini International Conductors’ Competition in Parma in 1997, he was invited to conduct the Arturo Toscanini Symphony Orchestra of Emilia Romagna on a tour of Italy.
He has worked with the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Warsaw Chamber Opera. In 1999 he was nominated the lecturer and a member of Conducting Faculty at Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. From this time on, he has also been conducting International Youth Music Workshop in Szczecin (as its artistic director and conductor). In 2004 he won the competition for the post of the head and artistic manager of Łomża Chamber Orchestra.
He has conducted most of Poland’s symphony orchestras. Foreign tours have taken him to Germany, France, Austria, Holland, the Czech Republic, Russia, Italy, Ukraine, Macedonia, the United States, Portugal, Mexico, Norway, Belgium, Lithuania and Belarus. So far, he has recorded 12 albums, one of which won a nomination for the Fryderyk Award of the Polish recording industry.
His honours include a Special Award from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in recognition of the invaluable contribution to Polish musical culture (2008) and a diploma for his outstanding achievements in the preservation of Chopin’s legacy (2011 and 2013). Furthermore, in 2013 he was honoured with Gloria Artis Medal and Podlaskie Voivodeship Marshal’s Award for extraordinary achievements in the field of artistic creation, popularisation and preservation of culture. In 2014 by the decision of the Polish president, Jan Miłosz Zarzycki has become the Professor of Musical Arts.
Sava Vutov
Sava Vutov was born in Sofia in 1994. She graduated from Lyubomir Pipkov National Music School in Sofia with a specialty “Piano” in the class of Assoc. Prof. Alexander Vasilenko. At present he is attending the Piano Masters at the National Music Academy “Prof. Pancho Vladigerov “- Sofia under Prof. Borislava Taneva.
Sava is a laureate of international competitions in Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Italy, England. He is the winner of the Grand Prize for the performance of Sergey Prokofiev at the 8th Academic Piano Competition “Nenov-Prokofiev” – 2016.
He is invited to prestigious music festivals, some of which are: “New Year’s Music Festival” – Sofia, “ppIANISSIMO FESTIVAL” – International Festival for Contemporary Piano Music – Sofia and “Sofia Music Weeks”.
He is actively involved in international master classes. He has recitals in Bulgaria, Greece, England, Spain and others.
Soloist of Orchestras – chamber ensemble “Sofia Soloists”, chamber orchestra “Orpheus” – Pernik, “Athens Symphony” – Athens, Greece, Vidin Philharmonic Orchestra, Razgrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Academic Symphony Orchestra and Student String Orchestra.
He has worked with the conductors: Prof. Plamen Dzhurov, Georgi Chimshirov, Prof. Ivaylo Krinchev, Konstantin Ilievski, Raycho Hristov and others.
Sava is also a composer of instrumental, choral and film music.
Since September 2017, Sava Vutov has been invited to teach “Piano” at Lyubomir Pipkov National Music School in Sofia, where his students are already laureates of international competitions.
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october 18, 2018 /Thursday/
18.30 hours Hall “M-Ro G.Atanasov”
Conductor: Joanna Natalia Ślusarczyk (Poland) Soloist: Zala Kravos – piano (Luxembourg)
Program:
Fr. Chopin – Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 2, op.21
F. Mendelssohn – Symphony No. 4 “Italian”, op.90
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Joanna Natalia Ślusarczyk
Majoring in Symphonic and Opera Conducting in the class of maestro Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk, graduated with honors from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, where she is currently working on her D.M.A. (Doctor of Music Arts). She also graduated with honors from the Academy of Music in Kraków.
In January 2018 she earned Third Prize in the First European Union International Conducting Competition in Pazardzhik/Sofia, Bulgaria. In April 2018, she won First Place at the London Classical Soloists Conducting Competition in Great Britain. She was also awarded a Special Mention at the BMW International Conducting Masterclass and Competition in Portugal (April 2018). In May 2018, she was chosen as the Conductor-in-Residence at the Silesian Philharmonic in Katowice, for the 2018-2019 season.
Ślusarczyk has conducted in the United States, Russia, Israel, Norway, Iceland, Portugal, France, Great Britain, Bulgaria and Ukraine. She worked with the International Symphony Orchestra ICM during International Copernicus Music Festival, Symphony Orchestra of the Silesian Philharmonic, Symphony Orchestra of the Philharmonic in Krakow, the Zielona Góra Philharmonic, Beethoven Academy Orchestra, Royal Symphony Orchestra, Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra da Costa Atlantica, Żorska Chamber Orchestra, Les Femmes Orchestra. She also worked with the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic in Białystok.
For artistic achievements she received scholarships from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, the Royal Capital City of Krakow, and the Malopolska Scholarship Foundation Sapere Auso.
Joanna Natalia Ślusarczyk established and conducted multiple concerts with her own orchestra – Małopolska Orkiestra Kameralna. She is a conductor of the Cracow Youth Chamber Orchestra. She is also a conductor of the Symphony Orchestra in the Wladyslaw Zelenski State Secondary Music School in Krakow.
Ślusarczyk is also a jazz singer. In 2010 she won Third Place at the International Competition of Jazz Vocalists in Zamość, Poland.
Zala Kravos
Born in Slovenia in July 2002, Zala Kravos was initiated into music from the age of three and received her first piano lessons at five. At six, she entered the Conservatory of the City of Luxembourg, where she has studied with Marco Kraus and Jean Muller and has obtained all available diplomas in piano performance and several diplomas in music theory. From 2012 to 2016, she studied at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel with Maria João Pires and has continued with Louis Lortie since then. Last May, she passed the ‘Young Artist Diploma’ exam. Since 2010, she regularly participates in master classes with internationally renowned pianists.
In 2009 and 2011, she won gold medals at the Luxembourg Competition for Young Soloists. She is also laureate of several international competitions in France, Luxembourg, and the USA.
She has participated in several festivals, for example Flagey Piano Days, Classissimo, and Vaux-Hall Summer in Brussels, ppIANISSIMO and Piano Extravaganza in Sofia, Klassiek op het Amstelveld in Amsterdam, and ISCM World New Music Days in Bratislava. She gave her first solo recital at the age of eleven. She played with an orchestra for the first time when she was eight and since then, she has made more than a dozen appearances in concertos by J. C. Bach, Beethoven, Berkovich, Chopin, Haydn, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Ravel. More recently, she has started playing chamber music.
In 2017, she recorded her first solo album (Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, and a contemporary piece written for her), which has been very well received by the critics and the media in several countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain…). At the age of eleven, she recorded two impromptus (Schubert and Chopin) for the jubilee CD marking the 150 years of the UGDA music education association in Luxembourg.