Week 13: The Great Paweł Łukaszewski

One of the greatest things about my Fulbright time in Poland, is being able to constantly brag about my teacher. 

Paweł Łukaszewski, as I have mentioned before, is one of the most exciting European composers of choral music on the scene today. His other music is equally wonderful. This past week was the 2nd in a series of concerts by the National Philharmonic this season that feature works of his. He is the composer in residence. This week, the "Trinity Concerto" for oboe and strings was performed. The third concert in the series is this coming weekend. The National Philharmonic choir will perform a set of his Polish Christmas Carols (Kolędy). The fourth and final concert will be in March and will include 3 or 4 of his works. I felt so proud to know him this past Tuesday night, when after the performance of his "Trinity Concerto" he walked on stage to receive the enthusiastic applause. He is such a gracious and down-to-earth, real person, who doesn't take himself too seriously. Of course he takes his art very seriously, but he is not so self absorbed, as many other contemporary composers are. He always insist on being addressed as Paweł even on first meetings. Many try to call him "Maestro" or "Professor" or something like this, but he insists on first names. After every concert, I'm always having to wait to talk with him behind groups of people who want him to sign their programs.

Whenever someone asks me how things are going, I almost always have something new to tell them about Paweł; a new recording, a new series of performances, something new I learned from him about writing for chorus, some great review of his music, etc., etc. For example, one of the world's best classical music magazines, BBC Music, reviewed 2 of his recent CDs in their December, 2011 issue. They ranked higher than new CDs by the King's Singers and other famous groups. 

This disc below has sold so many copies that he is being presented a Gold CD next week be the choir who is coming to Warsaw for a special performance in his honor.

I think that my favorite choral conductor in the world is Stephen Layton. He lives and works in Cambridge in the UK. His choirs are simply amazing; Polyphony and the Trinity Choir College of Cambridge. His is also a highly sought after, and excellent orchestral conductor. He puts out a new CD of contemporary choral music almost every year with one of these 2 choirs. The other day I was looking through the discs he has released and noticed something interesting. The best choral composers of the day have CDs with Layton, but most of them have only that one disc. An elite handful of living composers has had the honor to have 2 full discs of their music recorded by this visionary conductor; Morten Lauridsen, Arvo Pärt, John Rutter, and Paweł Łukaszewski. Not even Eric Whitacre tops him. Of course Whitacre has one disc, but Paweł is in amazing company with these great composers. He's the real thing!!

A quick story about this disc below. The last track on the disc is "Nunc Dimitis" (which is the Latin version of the words Simeon said when he saw the Baby Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem; a very important text in the liturgy). Layton had been preparing this disc of a cappella choral works and Paweł was about to hop a plane to Cambridge for the recording session. Layton called him the morning of and said that they had room for one more short choral piece on the album. He asked if there was anything else he would like to include. Paweł said, "if you are sure that you can prepare it with such short notice, than I feel sure that I can write a new piece for you." He had only three hours to do so. He quickly wrote this little piece which most people, including me, consider to be one of his most beautiful and touching. It's definitely in my top 5 favorites of his works.

It's such an honor to be working with him. What's more, it's a great honor to feel as though we are now friends. He is a deeply spiritual man who feels that he was born to write sacred music. I should have looked at my previous posts before writing this because I'm sure I've mentioned some of this before. But, I just can't help saying it again. Paweł Łukaszewski is a wonderful composer and a very good man. I love to brag about him!!!