One can choose between Arsenal Nights and Non Sola Scripta, or the Wroclaw Organ Summer - two large festivals with many years of tradition, which will start in June and end between mid-July and the end of the summer vacations. The first will be played outdoors and the other in the Holly Cross church.
Arsenal Nights
Last year's 17th edition of Arsenal Nights was a little more modest but this time there will be many stars, especially excellent singers: the tent set in the yard of the City Arsenal at ul. Cieszyńskiego between 27 June and 13 July will be the site of performances of, among others, the soprano Iwona Hossa and two mezzosopranos Agnieszka Rehlis and Urszula Kryger. They will be accompanied by the usual host of the festival, the Wratislavia Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jan Stanienda, an excellent violinist and the artistic director of the festival.
The programme of the Arsenal Nights has already been published here. It includes many attractions, especially that the aforementioned artists have prepared unusual programmes. Iwona Hossa and Agnieszka Rehlis are excellent soloists in oratory music repertoire but in Wroclaw, Iwona Hossa will sing George Friedrich Haendel's cantatas and Agnieszka Rehlis - compositions Latin American authors. The programme of Urszula Kryger, an unequalled interpreter of songs, will this time include Bach's cantatas. Moreover, the festival will include performance of nearly all the Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi's concertos, as well as - from repertoire chronologically closer to our times - Franz Schubert's "The Trout" piano quintet.
The ticket prices for the festival (27 June - 13 July, concerts on Fridays, Sundays, and Wednesdays), cost PLN 35 and PLN 27, while the prices of block tickets are PLN 180 and PLN 140.
Non Sola Scripta
This Latin phrase means "not everything that was written" and pertains to improvisation - an inseparable skill of every decent organist, instrumentalist, or vocalist. This year's 21st edition of the festival, also known as the Wroclaw Organ Summer, will be held between 29 June and 31 August in the Holly Cross church where the festival was moved by Andrzej Chorosiński, a famous Polish organist and the artistic director of the festival.
What are the festival's strengths? Not only the fact that it is probably the only festival extending over the entire summer vacation, but also its programme that combines organs with other instruments, to include the most precious one - human voice. This year we will have the opportunity to listen to famous European organists, to include Jan van Mol, Giampaolo di Rosa, and the teacher of the Wroclaw Music Academy Piotr Rojek. The regional accents include the Wratislavia Trumpet Consort (a formation consisting of trumpeters led by Igor Cecocho from Wroclaw's Music Academy) and the recently established Fernabucco due where the spouses Julia and Krzysztof Karpeta play violas da gamba. One of the festival's attractions is a concert with musicians playing the Celtic harp and the Scottish bagpipes.
The tickets for the Non Sola Scripta festival (29 June - 31 August) cost PLN 20 and PLN 15. They can be purchased before the concerts (all start at 7.00 PM on each Sunday).
Magdalena Talik
