The event has brought together musicians from Poland, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Italy and Britain.
It opened with the performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion by Die Koelner Academy from Germany and the Polish Historical Orchestra.
Foreign artists include Jewish cantor Baruch Finkelstein from Russia and the Dumka Choir from Ukraine.
The programme of the festival focuses on various liturgical forms, such as a mass, passion and vespers. It includes a Gregorian mass in jazz style, highland vespers by an orchestra from the Tatra resort of Zakopane and saxophone improvisations on Gregorian chants.
The Gaude Mater Festival is held annually since 1991.
Silesian capital hosts tribute to conductor
Meanwhile, the new hall of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice is the venue of a series of concerts in the first few days of May in tribute to Jerzy Maksymiuk, one of Poland’s leading conductors, who turned eighty last month.
He conducts the orchestra in works by Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy and Chopin. Among the musicians invited by Maksymiuk to join him for the occasion are the American pianist Kate Liu, Third Prize winner at last year’s Chopin Competition in Warsaw, and a highlanders’ quartet by Sebastian Karpiel-Bułecka from the Tatra resort of Zakopane.
Jerzy Maksymiuk is one of the most colourful personalities on the Polish music scene. In 1972, he founded the Polish Chamber Orchestra which performed in such prestigious venues as the Carnegie Hall and the BBC Proms and made a series of recordings for EMI.
In the 1980s he served as Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow. His discography comprises over one hundred records for such labels as EMI, Hyperion, and Naxos.
In 1990 he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by Strathclyde University in Glasgow and in 1999 he was presented with the Gold Medal from the Elgar Society for his contribution to the promotion of Elgar’s music. He is also an accomplished pianist and composer. (mk/nh)