Last year, under this slogan we initiated the first Polish festival of contemporary music for children. The enthusiasm of the public as well as the music critics and media made it obvious that “Little Warsaw Autumn” should also continue in subsequent years, motivating us to extend the programme of the event.
The mission and overall concept of Little Warsaw Autumn remains unchanged. Our aim is to familiarise the young listeners with intriguing sounds, encouraging them and their parents to participate in various musical events (concerts and workshops) that are adapted to the perceptive capacities of children. We want to teach them to listen, even those works that their parents would consider difficult and which, simply, are “unfamiliar”. Little Warsaw Autumn will also include interactive installations and musical spaces, giving the children both fun and creative opportunities. We will continue to commission new compositions and familiarise our public with musical areas that remain unknown in Warsaw and Poland.
This year, a concert, installation and workshop will make a guest appearance at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art. We will also feature George Crumb’s Federico’s Little Songs for Children, a cycle of seven short pieces for soprano, flute and harp to poems by Federico García Lorca, as well as Pierre Schaeffer’s Cinq études de bruits, a pioneering work of musique concrète. Łukasz Szałankiewicz’s interactive installation Whoosh Sounds will allow us to disover cosmic sounds. Workshops for children will be run by Dagna Sadkowska and Michał Górczyński, members of the Kwartludium ensemble, versatile musicians highly experienced in working with children. In partnership with them, we will uncover the wild animals that hide in musical instruments, and enter a musical kitchen to see whether members of a contemporary orchestra can become chefs. We will also welcome our public at the Royal Łazienki park for a musical stroll in the evening: an open-air composition realised by Jerzy Kornowicz.
