Date/Time
Date(s) - 03/19/2016
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Location
Vilar Center
Categories
Founded in 1945 on the heels of postwar Polish independence, The Polish Baltic Philharmonic is the largest music institution in northern Poland. The orchestra is visited not only by local music-lovers but by cosmopolitan Polish and international patrons alike. This is the place for those who enjoy art of the highest quality. The Philharmonic organizes symphonic concerts, recitals, and chamber music soirées performed by the most prominent Polish musicians as well as by many world-famous artists.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Gdańsk, then German-administered Danzig, held the international spotlight as a point of contention between Germany, a budding independent Poland, and those proud locals who saw Gdańsk as an independent city-state, the crown jewel of the Baltic Sea. Throughout the mid-20th century, Gdańsk became the primary seaport of Communist Poland. Littered with charming architecture and wizened thinkers, Gdańsk became the location for the first initiatives and protests in the 1970s and 1980s of the Solidarnoœæ [Solidarity] movement, chaired by future president Lech Wałęnsa. This movement would soon lead to the breakdown of Communism in Poland, and contributed to the dissolution of the Second World as it was known throughout the Cold War era.
One might think that these long periods of turbulence may have weakened the arts in Gdańsk, yet the reality is quite the opposite. The Polish Baltic Philharmonic as it exists and thrives today represents an amalgamation of these international and historical influences, and the lofty passions that witnessed tragedy and drove revolutions, while still capturing the prideful stoicism of contemporary Poland and the larger Baltic Sea coast.
Apart from its concert activities, the Philharmonic’s Music and Congress Centre on Olowianka Isle offers many rooms and halls to hire, which makes it a place of numerous symposiums, congresses, international trade conferences and occasional meetings. The facilities on Olowianka offer the following spaces: the Concert Hall (Capacity – 1,100), the Chamber Music Hall (Capacity -180), the Jazz Hall (Capacity – 200) and the Oak Hall (Capacity – 100). Those halls, as well as the adjacent foyer of 1,700 m2, are where external companies may organize concerts, special meetings and other events. What makes the Gdańsk Music and Congress Centre so unique is its possibility to raise the prestige of the meetings by enhancing them with music performed by a symphonic orchestra. Being a universal music institution, the Philharmonic deals also with studio recordings. The cutting-edge digital technologies and a team of licensed sound technicians of the Philharmonic’s recording studio ensure a high level of the offered services, from studio and concert recordings to full post-production of the sound material (including its mastering and re-mastering).
The Centre on the Olowianka Isle houses also a plastic arts gallery. In the beginning, it was an occasional one, which accompanied various events, however, by now it has beco