‘Romance à Joséphine’ - this new CD dedicated to Maria Szymanowska, was released on December 14, 2019. Twenty-seven Songs by women composers or poets, contemporaries of the Polish musician, have been - for the most part - recorded for the first time. The mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Zapolska and the pianist Bart van Oort on the Viennese instrument by Zierer ca.1825 offer a very rich range of musical miniatures to which women of different social backgrounds have brought a very special touch.
‘Warsaw - Paris: musical meetings in a mirror image’ - such were the atmosphere and the title of the latest 2019 edition of the Maria Szymanowska salons, which took place on November 21 at the Marchal Auditorium of the prestigious National Institute for the Young Blind (INJA) in Paris. Benjamin d'Anfray, Domitille Bès & Luca Montebugnoli, young pianist-researchers, under the direction of the musicologist Jeanne Roudet, head of MIMA Fortepiano (Master of Interpretation of Ancient Music) of Sorbonne University, presented an extremely rich musical program inspired by the atmosphere of the artistic salons of the first half of the 19th century in Warsaw and Paris. They were supported by singers Magda Maftei and Jeanne Mendoche, the flautist Nicolas Bouils and the cellist Lucie Arnal.
‘Maria Szymanowska invites Franciszek Lessel’ - this was the title of our new Salon which took place on October 23, 2019 at the Polish Library in Paris. With poetry and virtuosity performed Dorota Cybulska-Amsler on the piano Weimes 1820 a program composed of works by Maria Szymanowska, Franciszek Lessel and Karol Kurpinski.
The 4th International Symposium on Maria Szymanowska and her time entitled ‘Jewish Women in Maria Szymanowska’s Europe : Talents, Ambitions, Perspectives’ was held at the Paris Scientific Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences on 19-20 September 2019. Eleven researchers, three pianists from France, Poland, Italy, Germany, Belarus and USA, as well as a French actor, took part in this 4th edition of the Maria Szymanowska Symposiums and her time organized over the last ten years by the Maria Szymanowska Society in collaboration with the Scientific Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Historical and Literary Society / Polish Library in Paris.
On September 18, a new ‘Maria Szymanowska’s Parisian Salon’ was held at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Paris. A rare and high-quality program entitled ‘Following the Whisper. Songs of Women in Maria Szymanowska’s time’ was performed by three musicians from three different countries: the Polish-French mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Zapolska and the duo of pianists Petra Somlai (Hungary) and Bart van Oort (Netherlands).
‘Maria Szymanowska by hersel’ - this was the title of a new Parisian Salon that took place on July 17 at the Polish Library in Paris. The pianist Carole Carniel gave a highly acclaimed recital composed entirely of works by the Polish woman composer.
‘Maria Szymanowska and Bertel Thorvaldsen - the story of a hidden friendship’: this was the title of a new event of the project ‘Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831), a Woman of Europe’ which was held on April 17 at the Polish Library in Paris. It was the repeat of the concert-conference given by art historian Karen Benedicte Busk-Jepsen, opera artist Elisabeth Zapolska and pianist Malgorzata Kluźniak Celińska on March 8, 2019 at the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen.
Maria Szymanowska and the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen maintained epistolary contacts in the 1820s, which testify to their mutual friendship and esteem. This was also the main theme of the evening which took place on 8 March 2019 in the Great Hall of the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen, under the Honorary Patronage of the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to the Kingdom of Denmark Henryka Mościcka - Dendys.