Sir Andrzej Panufnik’s 100th Birthday

The Centenary Year is over and Panufnik’s music is still in the air, on air and everywhere. A proud total of 420-plus live performances took place throughout the world. For details go to the logo at the top of this page to discover the great and wonderful conductors and orchestras , and equally, the fine musicians of every age group from 26 different countries who celebrated the centenary with his music. The Panufnik team and his publishers warmly thank all the superb performers, the excellent administrators and the many sponsors worldwide who have helped to make the Panufnik Centenary such a success. They thank in particular the highly impressive Instytut Adama Mickiewicza which achieves a huge amount internationally for Polish culture; also IMIT, the Warsaw-based Institute of Music and Dance which has been wonderfully supportive within Poland.

In 2015 already, Polish conductor Łukasz Borowicz’s CPO 8-CD set of Panufnik’s orchestral works has won a prestigious ICMA awards. Sir Anthony Pappano’s LSO Live recording of Panufnik’s 10th Symphony will be launched in summer. Panufnik’s witty and dramatic autobiography, with added material, is expected soon and the new English version of Dr. B. Bolesławska’s esteemed Polish musicological biography is already available from Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

Looking to 2015 the favourite Panufnik work of the moment is Panufnik’s Violin Concerto (Menuhin’s commission). Already heard this year in Beijing, Berlin, England, Turkey and Latvia, the BBC include it in their Glasgow Panufnik Weekend (20th & 21st June). The Yehudi Menuhin School performs it 5 times, concluding on 11th July at the Gstaad Festival. Alexander Sitkovetsky gives 10 performances this year, 8 of them in Australia. In the autumn Krzysztof Penderecki with Aleksandra Kuls conducts it in Poland, and further performances are scheduled for 2016 and 2017.

In Poland two streets now carry the Panufnik name. At the ceremony of the most recent the Mayor of Warsaw cut the ribbon to the strains of the Panufnik fanfare from Sinfonia Sacra. Most touchingly Aleja Andrzeja Panufnika is an avenue of trees leading towards his grandmother’s home, now a music center for young people, but where he used so often to play as a child.

Panufnik’s international publishers, Boosey & Hawkes, will be happy to list on their website details of all forthcoming performances of music by Sir Andrzej Panufnik. Please contact emma.kerr@boosey.com