We talk to Jurek Dybał, director of Sinfonietta Cracovia, about the orchestra’s 25th anniversary season.
Karnet: Please accept our warmest congratulations! Twenty five years is a great anniversary and you have every reason to be pleased.
Jurek Dybał: That’s right, the 25th anniversary is certainly impressive, especially given the difficult economic situation around the time of the ensemble’s foundation. Twenty five years ago, in October 1994, the orchestra was christened the Sinfonietta Cracovia Orchestra of the Royal Capital City of Kraków, largely thanks to the efforts and support from Elżbieta and Krzysztof Penderecki. But the ensemble’s history dates back even earlier: it has its roots in the Young Chamber Musicians of Kraków founded by leading students at the Academy of Music in Kraków. And the occasion is all the more significant because I am also celebrating my own, albeit more modest anniversary. It is now five years since I first had the honour to lead the Orchestra of the Royal Capital City of Kraków. The name itself is quite the commitment, and then there is the 25-year history. I am delighted that I have been able to lead the Sinfonietta out of a temporary stagnation and improve its standing on the global scene. We recently performed in Japan, Finland, France, the Netherlands… We played at the Gustav Mahler House in Czechia and at the famous Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna. Last year we went on a twenty-concert tour to Germany, and we have many bookings in place for next year. We will soon be travelling to China and South Korea. It will be our third tour in China and the second of Korea.
And you also regularly perform in Poland.
That’s right, especially in Kraków. One of our major achievements is the hugely popular cycle Stars with Sinfonietta. It will include a grand gala, crowning the celebrations of our anniversary. On 9 November, we will be joined at ICE Kraków by the incredible multi-percussionist Martin Grubinger, whom we previously met during the Beethoven Festival in Warsaw. An important part of the concert will be the Polish premiere of Prof. Krzysztof Penderecki’s Musik for strings, marimba, percussion and three flutes. It’s not just the instrumentarium that makes the composition special; the piece has hardly ever been performed since its world premiere almost twenty years ago. We are hoping to bring this rare composition into the mainstream. There will also be popular hits such as Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony or Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, while John Corgliano’s Concerto for string orchestra and percussion will serve as a bridge between classical music and music of the turn of the millennium. We will be celebrating our anniversary in style by making the most of the concert hall of ICE Kraków where we will set up Martin’s vast percussion sets. It will be a great event!
What else can we expect from the new season?
We will welcome back Rafael Payare, one of the leading young conductors working today, described as a successor to Lorin Maazel. He has worked with the Vienna Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony, and he is currently the leader of the San Diego Symphony. Payare has been enchanted by our orchestra since our first encounter, and he has been our guest conductor for the last two years. He launched the Sinfonietta’s latest season in September, and we will be able to admire his skills once again in January.
We have extensive plans for our anniversary season – I should mention that my old dream of performing Dvořák’s Wanda is finally coming true – as a part of Opera Rara festival. It’s likely to be the first performance in Poland of the full opera, which is actually based on a Cracovian legend. The title role will be performed by the great Slovak soprano Adriana Kučerová.
We are also continuing our cycle Music Without Applause, co-hosted with MOCAK. We present music of the 20th and 21st centuries in a slightly unusual setting, because the audience isn’t allowed to clap between different pieces [laughs]. We don’t judge the compositions, but we contemplate them like artworks. We are delighted that the cycle is proving to be very popular.
We also host special concerts for kids. The cycle Sinfonietka, introduced five years ago, is enjoying immense popularity. Danuta Augustyn, one of our violinist, takes on the role of Miss Sinfonietka for these interactive sessions which include teaching kids basics of composition. That’s how we created a score which the Sinfonietta has recorded and performed.
We also host the Sinfonietta Festival, held every summer. We always invite some of the finest ensembles and soloists, and host a composition competition. We will finish this season in style, although there’s still plenty of time for that!
One of the Sinfonietta’s strong points is its highly diverse repertoire, reaching beyond classics. Will your anniversary season be the same?
Oh yes, we’re really stretching ourselves [laughs]. The diversity of our repertoire is a response to what happens around the world, and to the preferences of our musicians. Almost all of them are also improvisers in styles ranging from the Baroque to jazz, while during the most recent Sinfonietta Festival we had country/blues-style fun during our chamber clubbing session. There is no good or bad music. Rossini once said that music can be good or boring; in a similar vein, we join forces with jazz musicians, perform at the Unsound Festival, play film music and perform grand compositions by Penderecki. And we do all this with honesty and dedication. Kraków is lucky to have an orchestra which is up to the challenges of the contemporary world.
You are widely praised for breathing fresh life into the Sinfonietta: you have changed the orchestra’s image as an institution and brought it to new audiences.
It’s also because we are active on social media, organise advertising campaigns, regularly update our website design… I work on the assumption that concert posters don’t necessarily have to follow classical or indie styles. Whenever I speak to designers, I explain that our style is glamour for everyone [laughs]. We are expanding the circles of our listeners, especially that in certain ways we are on the frontline. And I use this metaphor consciously – since Kraków has so much culture on offer, we really have to fight for the public’s attention.
You come from Silesia and that’s where you started your career. Do you feel like a native Cracovian today?
Oh, very much so [laughs]! I’ve always had close ties to the city – even when I was still at school I regularly travelled from Bytom to Kraków. I usually used the excuse of visiting a luthier, telling my professor that my double bass had gone wrong again [laughs]. And I still have close ties to Silesia – I frequently perform with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice and the Silesian Opera in Bytom. Silesia and Małopolska are very different regions, even though they are geographically very close. One of my ambitions is to bring them even closer together.
Interviewed by Sebastian Rerak
