An Evening of Music from Poland
MIT Symphony Orchestra, Adam K. Boyles, music director, feature Polish violinist Agata Szymczewska as part of a program of Polish music that will include Stanislaw Moniuszko, Mazurka from the opera Halka (Helen); Karol Szymanowski, Violin Concerto No. 1 with Agata Szymczewska; and Witold Lutoslawski, Concerto for Orchestra. 8pm, Kresge Auditorium. Admission: $5. Free in advance to the MIT community. Tickets at http://mitmta.eventbrite.com and at the door.
This event is part of Poland-US Campus Project, an initiative of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, a one of-a-kind attempt at sparking an interest in Polish culture in large academic centers in the United States. Currently, the project involves five universities: Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale and the University of Michigan. For information about this project visit: Culture.pl
About the artist
Winner of the 2006 Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Poznań, Agata Szymczewska has since won a number of other prestigious awards. She was also the first to receive the London Music Masters Award by a committee composed of members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Wigmore Hall and the Royal College of Music.
In October 2009, Szymczewska made her debut at Wigmore Hall, following which she received an invitation to play at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vanska in autumn 2010.
She has performed across Europe in addition to Israel, Canada, China, Korea and Japan, appearing with orchestras including Sinfonia Varsovia, Warsaw Philharmonic (the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Poland), National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Vilnius State Symphony Orchestra, and Russian Philharmonic. She has collaborated with outstanding conductors including Krzysztof Penderecki, Andrey Boreyko, Moshe Atzmon, Dmitri Liss, Saulius Sondeckis, Antoni Wit, Maxim Vengerov and Jerzy Maksymiuk.
Szymczewska is also a very active chamber musician. Every year since 2005, she has taken part in the prestigious International Music Academy Switzerland founded by Maestro Seiji Ozawa. In 2005, she toured Japan and China with Maestro Seiji Ozawa as the youngest member and concertmaster of Ongaku-juku Orchestra. In 2010 she took part in the Kronberg Academy’s „Chamber Music Connects the World” Festival, where she had the chance to play with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Franz Helmerson.
Her discography includes performances with Krystian Zimerman, Kaja Danczowska, Ryszard Groblewski and Rafał Kwiatkowski of Grażyna Bacewicz’s Piano Quintets to commemorate the centenary of the composer’s birth. In October 2010, Szymczewska recorded the violin concertos of Bruch and Mendelssohn and Wieniawski’s Legend.
She plays an Antonio Stradivarius violin (Cremona, ca. 1680) on loan from Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben.
