Poland Four-City Concert Tour
This past spring we headlined a four-city concert tour in Poland alongside Polish-American conductor Mariusz Smolij. Previously we worked with Maestro Smolij on a three-season collaboration with his talented Acadiana Symphony Orchestra in Lafayette, Louisiana. For that, the ASO performed two different visual pieces from our repertoire each season to fit their season themes of Water, Fire, and Science.
Now we’ve continued our work together in Mariusz’s homeland, where he spearheaded a concert tour in four distinct regions of Poland. Each week for a month we had one concert in each participating city: Łódź, Opole, Olsztyn, and Toruń. The four orchestras are the Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra, Filharmonia Opolska, Filharmonia Warmińsko-Mazurskiej, and the Toruńska Orkiestra Symfoniczna. Mariusz is Artistic Director for the TOS.
Each of the four concerts, collectively titled “The American Landscape,” was conducted by Maestro Smolij and had a special emphasis on the sweeping landscapes and lifeways of the American West through our three visual pieces on the program—Pacifica, Grand Canyon Country, and Rodeo!. They are choreographed to Mahler’s Adagietto, Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite, and Copland’s Rodeo suite, respectively.
As a fun side note, our Creative Director, Nicholas Bardonnay, made a very brief visit to Poland during a freak October blizzard when he was shooting Czech Journeys back in 2012. This was atop a mountain called Śnieżka—the highest in the Czech Republic—that is bisected by Poland’s border on its northern side. After the blizzard cleared, Nicholas moseyed down the Polish side of the mountain, chatting with several hikers along the way. Little did he know that, just 6 years later, he would be spending over a month getting to know the country and its people.
Our recent Polish concert tour follows the premiere of symphonic photochoreography in neighboring Germany last January with the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen. We loved sharing our art form in Poland, and we’re already in talks with Maestro Smolij about our next project together in the states.
