NFM Wrocław Philharmonic and Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero to Perform Five Concerts in Four Cities

From January 10-14, the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic and Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero will perform five concerts in four cities in Florida -- Ft. Myers, Gainesville, Daytona Beach and West Palm Beach -- as part of the Polish orchestra's twelve-city US tour this month. The tour also includes stops in Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville and throughout California.

The orchestra will perform works of Polish composers from across generations, including Frederic Chopin, Karol Szymanowski and Witold Lutosławski, an original patron of the National Forum of Music (NFM) in Wrocław. Fellow Central European composers Johannes Brahms and Antonin Dvořák will also be represented on tour.

The NFM Wrocław Philharmonic begins the tour on January 10 in Ft. Myers, FL and goes on to Gainesville (January 11), Daytona Beach (Jan 12) and West Palm Beach, FL (Jan 13-14) performing a Szymanowski Concert Overture or Lutosławski Symphonic Variations; Dvořák's "New World" Symphony or Brahms Symphony No. 1 and Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with pianist David Fray, described by Die Welt as the "perfect example of a thinking musician." Polish violinist Janusz Wawrowski joins the tour for the Szymanowski Violin Concerto in a second concert in West Palm Beach which also includes Lutosławski Symphonic Variations and Brahms Symphony No. 1.

"The NFM Wrocław Philharmonic will perform repertoire by three generations of Polish composers," says Giancarlo Guerrero, Music Director of the Wrocław Philharmonic since 2017. "Of course, no tour by a Polish orchestra would be complete without Chopin, who visited Wrocław several times over his lifetime. Szymanowski, representing the early 20th century, was inspired by Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, and you will hear their Romantic influence in the Concert Overture, but with the Violin Concerto of 1916, Szymanowski is coming into his own. Though it is orchestrated for huge forces, including a piano, celesta and harps, the piece is still written in a transparent way where the violin undoubtedly leads the way. This work is really the first great concerto of the 20th century in a modern style. Lutosławski was the original patron of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic and with his Symphonic Variations from 1938, we highlight the composer's strong relationship with Wrocław and the orchestra, which has now recorded Lutosławski's entire orchestral output. A key figure in Wrocław's musical history, Brahms was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Wrocław (then Breslau) in 1879. In response to the composer's note of thanks, the city urged him to come to the University to compose for a year. He accepted the invitation and went on to write his Academic Festival Overture for the city of Breslau as a gesture of gratitude."

"With this important tour, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic reaches beyond the borders of the city to become a real cultural ambassador for Poland," Guerrero continues. "I am energized by the vision of what this orchestra is becoming, and I am proud to bring them on tour to the United States to represent this important European cultural center."

After Florida, the Wrocław Philharmonic will perform in Greenville, SC (Jan 19), Nashville (Jan 21), Carmel, IN, (Jan 23) and Chicago (Jan 25) with Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski. The final leg of the tour will bring the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic west to Wickenburg, AZ (Jan 29), Orange (Jan 30), Palo Alto (Jan 31) and Rohnert Park, CA (Feb 1) where they perform the Szymanowski concerto with violinist Bomsori Kim.

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