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Sacrum Profanum 2023

18 years old – that means #youth

2020-09-09

2020 marks the symbolic 18th edition of Sacrum Profanum, which enters adulthood in this breakthrough year, full of changes, turmoil and redefinitions. However, for a festival such as Sacrum Profanum, this is mostly an opportunity – due to the enormous potential of the digital formula. Youth is the first episode of the trilogy, or the first instalment of a three-season series, which is probably more fitting, given the digital character of the festival.

Throughout its history, the Sacrum Profanum Festival kept evolving – that was its main assumption since the very beginning, as it was supposed to be open and responsive to current events – not only musical, but also social. From the get-go, Sacrum Profanum did not shy away from discovering new music, bold statements and pressing questions concerning many aspects. That is why we are announcing the first digital edition of the festival in its long history – another step in its development – says Izabela Helbin–Błaszczyk, director of the KBF.

Sacrum Profanum #18: a tribute to Penderecki inspired by Netflix

The 18th edition of the festival brings 9 premiere concerts, along with accompanying events and workshops for children. This year's programme of Sacrum Profanum features pieces from Poland, Ireland, Canada, USA and Australia. The festival will start on 1 November – the significance of this special date for Polish culture will be reflected in the character of the Ars Antiqua concert performed by Stefan Węgłowski. From 1 to 7 is a series of songs, which constitute a certain homage for the composer’s deceased mother – Dorota Grynczel, referring to her art, as well as the painful stages of saying goodbye to the outstanding painter.

Among ten festival commissions, we will also offer a piece inspired by Black Mirror: Bandersnatch – a tribute to Krzysztof Penderecki. Composed by Piotr Peszat, PEnderSZATch is a piece that offers multiple paths and courses of events, and the progress of career of the “young and promising composer from Krakow” will be decided by the audience.

Barbara Kinga Majewska and Marcin Masecki are going to present a project devoted not to music, but... to training. Adonis Gamut is supposed to be a starting point for the debate about the importance of training in building the identity of an artist. Performed Lecture, which is going to be performed by the Wrocław-based Kompopolex will combine elements of a lecture and live music, while Music and Sport will make an unconventional attempt to capture the links between these two seemingly distant fields. The Streamforms concert will give us an opportunity to listen to a juxtaposition of seemingly incoherent sounds and structures of early music, pop, alternative and dance, going as far as including references to... Justin Bieber.

Architectural scores and flirting with internet phenomena

The programme of the 18th edition of Sacrum Profanum offers space not only for concerts, but also events that play with the convention and engage the audience on a different level. One of them is ASMR, a theory that has gained immense popularity on the Internet, which claims that humans have specific reaction to appropriately selected whispers or murmurs – they are supposed to induce a pleasant state of relaxation and provide the listener with a sensual experience. The ASMRconcert will be an attempt at disputing this phenomenon by presenting pieces exploring these issues. We are also going to be treated to the classic Quartetto per archi by Krzysztof Penderecki.

While working on the festival’s programme, we kept equality in mind – however, you should listen to Women’s Forms for other reasons as well. Women – both composers and instrumentalists – who explore their own identity do not want to fight on the barricades, they simply want to play what they have composed for each other. They are going to play their music, and we are going to listen to what they have to say.

This year’s Sacrum Profanum will be crowned by the soloists of the Hashtag Ensemble. The #archi-solos concert will treat architecture and urban space as scores for improvisation, used by the soloists to read the well-known treasures of Krakow’s architecture, from Cricoteka to the Płaszów locomotive depot – and more.

When we decided to organise a digital edition of Sacrum Profanum, we decided to completely change its format. The internet offers an abundance of content – our objective is to deliver it in the highest possible quality, while keeping the intensity and quantity at a level that allows you to take it all in. Starting from the last week of October, which will be a prologue to the festival taking place in November, we are going to offer the subsequent programme events at a regular pace over the course of five weeks. We believe that a utopian slow festival is something that can be done online! – says Krzysztof Pietraszewski, curator of the Sacrum Profanum Festival

In addition to concerts, this year's programme of the Sacrum Profanum Festival also offers a number of prelude events: Tova and Lizée’s Kubrick Studies available on Sacrum Profanum Facebook fanpage,along with a series of accompanying events, including the performance of the Opera for the Deaf, How does Krakow sound? – a sound game, music workshops for children, Random Checkaudiovisual project , as well as workshops with Paweł Romańczuk entitled Samoróbka, during which the participants will learn how to build instruments from... nothing.

Long live the Youth!

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The full programme of the festival is available at www.sacrumprofanum.com

The sales of access to the 2020 Sacrum Profanum Festival concerts will start in October on the www.playkrakow.com platform.