“Music comes first in our home.”
Grzegorz Wieczorek (Academy of Music in Gdańsk) invites you to the autumn family Camerata!

When the temperature outside shows a steady downward trend, the leaves on the trees begin to turn from green to yellow and red as we put on warmer and warmer clothes for our daily walk around the neighborhood, a sign that autumn has arrived. With the first days of it, we get ready for new impressions and emotions as well as meetings with friends. We want everything positive to accompany us during the events that will fill our autumn calendars.

We would like to invite you to participate in the next, full of colours and warmth, but already autumn concert in the series Olivia Camerata. Once again, we will host you at Olivia Star, on Saturday, October 13 at 16.00.

Let’s add that it will be the 3rd. concert of this year’s “Four Seasons” series. After the extremely successful performance of Magdalena Molendowska in June, which gathered an audience of nearly 200 people, we invite you to the next edition of this unique musical event.

Ahead of us, during the autumn Camerata, will be the performance of the extremely musical family of Mr. and Mrs. Wieczorek , consisting of: a musical married couple, pianist Alicja Wieczorek, clarinetist Grzegorz Wieczorek , together with their daughter Basia (oboe) and son Szymon (clarinet). The concert will also feature soprano Bogna Forkiewicz and her daughter Blanka Błażejowska (violin, vocals).

^{Fig. Alicja and Grzegorz Wieczorek with their children – Basia and Szymon}

In the Olivia Star lobby, before and after the concert, you will also be able to admire the artworks of Jan Błażejowski and Szymon Wieczorek.

^{Fig. Bogna Forkiewicz with her children – Blanka and Jan}

We will try to say goodbye to summer in a pleasant mood and welcome autumn, golden autumn shimmering with various musical colours.

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We invite you to read the interview with Prof. Grzegorz Wieczorek, which will introduce us to the artistic passions and favorite activities of each member of the family and announce the program of our concert.

Monika Bogdanowicz (Olivia Business Centre): How did you spend your summer holidays? Was it possible to rest, or was it also a time of intensive work and other activities?

Prof. Grzegorz Wieczorek:* The holidays were an opportunity for us to relax together. We visited Andalusia (Malaga, Granada, Seville), where this time it was not hotter than in Poland (laughs). In addition, each of our family members had the opportunity to… Work.

Together with my wife, we started the summer holidays with the VI Summer Clarinet Workshops, which we conducted together with Jan Jakub Bokun and Dawid Głowacki at the Music School Complex in Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz. At the same time, our son took part in the International Youth Music Workshops in Szczecin. At the end of the summer holidays, I played a concert and conducted classes during the Master Courses at the Palace in Rybna. At that time, my wife was an accompaniment at the summer workshops of wind instruments called Musical Torture, which took place in Wadowice, and one of the participants was our daughter.

M.B.: What place does music have in your family’s life?

G.W.: Music in our house is definitely in the first place. Playing an instrument cannot be done occasionally, it is a daily job to which we are all subject. Even the children, despite the fact that they are still students, already have their musical commitments, which condition our family plans.

Basia and Szymon study at the Secondary Music School of the first and second degree. F. Nowowiejski in Gdansk. Basia is a student of class VI (he plays the oboe) and Szymon XI (plays the clarinet), in two years he will be taking his final exams. They have already won awards and distinctions in competitions, but I think that the most important thing at their stage of education is perseverance and improvement of their skills, and awards are only a “by-product” and should not become the goal of their actions.

M.B.: Tell us about your family and introduce the performers we will see at the next autumn Camerata.

G.W.: Szymon is interested in composition, he particularly likes to write for large symphonic ensembles, recently he has been saying more and more often that he would like to study conducting, but he is also passionate about philosophy, literature and painting. He also paints himself, and there will be an opportunity to see some of his works during the concert. Basia loves sports, especially acrobatics, she rides horses and swims very well.

M.B.: But music is not the only art you deal with?

G.W.: When we have moments of free time, we like to go outdoors, to the seaside or to Kashubia. We like to get to know new places and try local delicacies.

M.B.: The third edition of this year’s Olivia Camerata series – Four Seasons: Autumn – is ahead of us. What songs will we hear during the concert in the lobby of Olivia Star?

G.W.: During the concert we will hear, among others: Vocal music, pieces for violin, oboe and clarinet performed by professional musicians, but also children who are still in education, so we also invite younger audiences to listen to how their peers play after several years of study. We will hear, m.in, such well-known songs as “You Remember It Was Autumn“, Franz Schubert’s “The Shepherd on the Rock”, “The Trout”, “Margaret at the Spinning Wheel”, excerpts from the Oboe Concerto in D major part I. II by Joseph Haydn or Malcolm Arnold’s ” Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano” and works by Oskar Rieding “Concertino in D major op. 25” and Igor Stravinsky’s “Three”. I’m glad that we’re going to perform in such an interesting place for Olivia’s community. I especially invite whole families to our concert. It’s a special moment. It’s time to be with your loved ones and enjoy the contact with music and the beauty that comes from it.

M.B.: What are your ways of passing on your passion to the next generations?

G.W.: We are teachers of the Music School Complex in Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz, as well as the Academy of Music in Gdańsk. We work a lot, but we enjoy it and we have never wanted to live differently, we hope that our pupils and students feel it.

M.B.: Thank you for the interview.

G.W.: I cordially invite you to the concert and see you in Olivia!

REGISTER FOR THE CONCERT

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*Ad. Ph.D. Grzegorz WIECZOREK. He graduated from the Secondary Music School in Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz in the clarinet class of prof. Andrzej Pietras. In 1996 he began his studies at the Academy of Music in Gdańsk under the supervision of the same teacher. After the death of Prof. Andrzej Pietras became a student of prof. Mark Schiller, in whose class he graduated with honors in 2001. He is a laureate of many awards and distinctions. He perfected his skills during courses, working under the guidance of such outstanding teachers as: Andrzej Janicki, Mieczysław Stachura, Philippe Cuper, Wolfgang Meyer, Jean-Marc Fessard, Antonio Saiote, David Campbell. Grzegorz Wieczorek is the first clarinetist of the orchestra of the Baltic State Opera, having toured abroad many times (Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg, Estonia). As a musician of this orchestra, he had the opportunity to perform many times at opera festivals in Bydgoszcz and Poznań, as well as at the opera festival in Szeged, Hungary, organized and broadcast by the French television Mezzo. Grzegorz Wieczorek collaborates with the Polish Chamber Philharmonic of Wojciech Rajski. He has performed as a soloist with the Academic Symphony Orchestra and the Poznań Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, he is associated with the “Hevelius” clarinet quartet, the Gdańsk Wind Instruments Ensemble, as well as the Mozart Basethorn Ensemble. Since 2001 he has been employed at the Academy of Music in Gdańsk, and in the academic year 2011/2012 he took the position of assistant professor at the same academy.