Idea
2016 marks the 70th anniversary of Feliks Nowowiejski’s death, and 2017 sees the 140th anniversary of his birth. The Polish Sejm made 2016 the Nowowiejski Year. This occasion is a chance to popularize the vast musical output of the composer whom his compatriots known mainly as the composer of “Rota” [The Oath], and to evoke Nowowiejski’s patriotism and social activism.
The leading idea behind the anniversary is to honor Feliks Nowowiejski as a composer, conductor, organist, pedagogue and organizer of musical life in Poland, while also using his biography as a prism focusing the complex political, historical and cultural change in Poland at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.
The Office’s initiatives have been intended as a means to support the organization of artistic, academic, documentary and popularizing undertakings related to Nowowiejski’s life and oeuvre in the context of music, history and culture of the late 19th and early 20th century, as well as the first half of the 20th century.
Owing to the volume of Nowowiejski’s works, the double anniversary of the composer’s birth and death, and the scheduling of artistic seasons, the anniversary will be celebrated throughout a two-year period.
The Office will implement numerous joint projects submitted by the Feliks Nowowiejski Society, Feliks Nowowiejski Warmian-Masurian Philharmonic, Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz, Polish Composers’ Union, and the Institute of Music and Dance as a proven coordinator of the Lutosławski Centenary and the Kolberg Year.
