Penderecki and Greenwood to play Open’er Festival

Jonny Greenwood (L) and Krzysztof Penderecki: photo - press materials

Tens of thousands are expected to attend the concert, which will be performed by the AUKSO Chamber Orchestra from the town of Tychy in southern Poland.

Two early pieces for string instruments, “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima” and “Polymorphia”, will be performed under the composer’s baton, complemented by Greenwood’s variations on these works, “Popcorn Superhet Receiver” and “48 Responses to Polymorphia”, conducted by Marek Moś.

Open’er’s artistic director Mikołaj Ziółkowski has admitted that inviting Penderecki and Greenwood to the rock festival was a risky decision.

“Their music is not easily accessible,” he said ,” but there is no denying that the Penderecki-Greenwood project is one of the most interesting international collaborative ventures of recent years.”

Penderecki and Greenwood presented the same programme for the first time in the Polish city of Wrocław in September 2011 and at London’s Barbican last April. The same four pieces are included on the Nonesuch CD released earlier this year.

Some British journalists have described their collaboration as a meeting of musical giants, referring to the seventy-nine-year-old Penderecki as “Poland’s godfather of the musical avant-garde" and to Greenwood as "the doyen of English art-pop". (mk/nh)