"Little Warsaw Autumn" - ninth edition

The 2019 Little Warsaw Autumn will unfold, as each year, in Warsaw’s Królikarnia Sculpture Park. Here, in a casual atmosphere, the public will participate in an open air musical performance and visit a sound installation. A concert will also take place at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music, while a musical walk will be organised at the Museum of Warsaw amongst its monuments and memorabilia. Inspired by the “large” Warsaw Autumn, Little Warsaw Autumn looks for the mystery of sound in air.

The Pneumatophones installation will offer the opportunity of exploring how bellow and reed instruments work. To find out, you will need to look for three mysterious geometrical objects in the cave under the palace and pump air into them; they will unfold and play on their reeds.

In the Królikarnia park, we shall gather at a musical performance to experience an aerial evolution born from breathing. We shall move through sound time and space from birth to transience, experiencing decay and the rebirth of a new world. Immersed in the sounds of flutes, rattles, drums, and an electronic trail surrounding the instruments, we shall disclose the mystery of breath and inspiration.

If we are intrigued by the aerial nature of music, organ is a must. In one of the rooms the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music, this extraordinary huge instrument is sleeping in solitude. We shall wake it up, together with the accordion and violin, in the company of composers such as Jerzy Bauer, Andrzej Krzanowski, György Ligeti, and Dariusz Przybylski, and the organ will speak through its entire spectrum of colours and textures.

This year, we shall also visit the Museum of Warsaw, taking the public on a walk In search of the Thingssound. The Museum is a stunning place, full of stories told through artistic objects but also personal souvenirs of Warsaw residents, collected in many rooms. The Museum is full of emotions linked to the city’s history but also “small histories.” We would like to hear the Museum’s sound and what it has to tell us. Our guides will be two crazy seekers: Mrs. Scream Blue Murder (soprano) and Mr Soundshot (cello), who can distil the most precious essence of every thing: the memories embedded in them and a melody to share with the public.

Paulina Celińska
Curator of Little Warsaw Autumn