On 11 August, we launch the first stage of ticket sales for selected concerts in Warsaw. This year’s Eufonie programme has been inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. It is one of the most apt metaphors for culture, in which music and the experience of sharing it can become a golden bond in a divided world.

This year’s 8th International Music Festival of Central and Eastern Europe Eufonie will take place from 12 November to 6 December. The Festival will be inaugurated by a concert at the Grand Theatre in Łódź, where the world-famous soprano Kristine Opolais, together with an orchestra conducted by Rafał Kłoczko, will combine operatic craftsmanship with gems of Polish music of the turn of the twentieth century. It will be a prelude to the remaining concerts in the programme, in which a special place is occupied by the world premiere of Zygmunt Krauze’s work based on Adam Zagajewski’s poem Try to Praise the Mutilated World. It is a meeting of two great voices of Polish culture – a poet and a composer whose work reminds us that beauty can help us through the most difficult experiences in life.

The social and identity dimension of music will also be present in Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2, performed by the Latvian Liepāja Symphony Orchestra conducted by Guntis Kuzma – a work whose music awakened the national spirit of the Finns – as well as in a new co-commissioned composition by Elżbieta Sikora, which is a musical tribute to the individual’s resistance to an oppressive system.

The monumental Credo – the last great work by Krzysztof Penderecki – will be performed at the Warsaw Philharmonic and during partner concerts in other cities, where the Orchestra and Choir of the Kraków Philharmonic and the Ukrainian Children’s Choir will perform under the direction of Michał Klauza. The sounds of Witold Lutosławski’s reflective Musique funèbre will fill the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of Polish Radio, while Valentin Silvestrov’s contemplative Silent Music, performed by the Baltic Neopolis Orchestra, will be heard at Nowa Miodowa in Warsaw, as well as during events in partner cities. Folk themes will also feature in the programme – the concert Pictures from Slovakia will take us into the sounds of the Slovak mountains.

In this edition of the Eufonie Festival, listeners will be guided along contemplative musical paths: from Mahler’s ironic metaphysics and du Grain’s spiritual Baroque landscapes to contemporary musical meditation on mortality by Mikołaj Górecki in his new composition Atlantis and reflection on transience in the opera The Magic Mountain, produced by Nowy Teatr International Cultural Centre and Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera, co-organised by the National Centre for Culture Poland and the Poznań Malta Festival. The premiere of the opera will take place during the 7th New Europe International Festival.

An integral part of the Festival is also the Little Eufonie series for the youngest listeners and the Altersounds section – an overview of contemporary artistic explorations at the intersection of electronics, jazz, film music and improvisation. As part of Altersounds, in 2026 we will hear, among others, Bastarda, Baasch and Etnobotanika.

Ticket sales for the remaining concerts of this year’s edition, including partner events held in other cities, will be launched soon!