Valery Gergiev to conduct at Krzysztof Penderecki’s birthday

Warsaw is currently hosting the Krzysztof Penderecki Festival commemorating the composer’s eightieth birthday. Internationally acclaimed performers including violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, violists Yuri Bashmet and Julian Rachlin, pianist Barry Douglas, cellist Ivan Monighetti and conductors Lorin Maazel, Charles Dutoit and Marek Janowski have all arrived to congratulate the Polish music maestro. On Saturday 23 November at the Teatr Wielki – Opera Narodowa there will be a gala concert to close the festival featuring a performance of the grandiose Credo (1998) – one of Penderecki’s most grandiose works. The performance will see the participation of more than two hundred people – solo vocalists, the Sinfonia Varsovia orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Chorus, the Chorus the Opera Narodowa and the Warsaw Boys’ Choir. Maestro Gergiev will be conducting. 

Krzysztof Penderecki, who has himself successfully combined careers as a composer and conductor, has a high regard for Valery Gergiev’s performing style, characterising him as a “subtle and profound musician.” On several occasions the Polish composer has entrusted maestro Gergiev with the premiere performances of his works; on 1 September 2009 Valery Gergiev conducted the World Orchestra for Peace in the world premiere of Prelude for Peace at the Church of Sts Peter and Paul in Kraków, while in January 2011 Gergiev conducted the world premiere of Penderecki’s vocal symphony series A Sea of Dreams Did Breathe on Me. The same year, the Stars of the White Nights festival saw a series of concerts of music by Penderecki, with Valery Gergiev again conducting the series A Sea of Dreams Did Breathe on Me – the first performance in Russia – while Krzysztof Penderecki himself conducted his own Fifth Symphony and Concerto Grosso for three cellos and orchestra.