Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are happy to announce the 2019 International Classical Music Awards for recordings made by the ensembles of the National Forum of Music in Wrocław.
The 17th-Century Sacred Music in Wrocław, recorded with the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, Gli Angeli Genève and Concerto Palatino under the direction of Stephan MacLeod for the record label Claves, won in the "Baroque Vocal" category. In the finale, shortlisted alongside the album of the Wrocław ensemble were also Lully: Alceste (performed by J. van Wanroij, E. Crossley-Mercer, E. Gonzalez Toro, Les Talens Lyriques, and Rousset) and Porpora: Germanico in Germania (performed by M.E. Cencic, J. Lezhneva, M.-E. Nesi, J. Sancho, Capella Cracoviensis, JT Adamus).
Arvo Pärt – The Symphonies, recorded by the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste for the ECM label, won the "Contemporary" category, beating in the final The John Adams Edition published by the Berliner Philharmoniker with the participation of Sir Simon Rattle and the album Incantations (performed by S. Sietzen, Romanian National Symphony Orchestra, C. Mandeal).
17th-Century Sacred Music in Wrocław
17th-Century Sacred Music in Wrocław is an album of the National Forum of Music and the Swiss label Claves, recorded by the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra and ensembles Gli Angeli Genève and Concerto Palatino. The whole was conducted by Stephan MacLeod, a Swiss conductor and one of the greatest singers on the international music scene. The album is a panorama of sacred music of the seventeenth-century Wrocław. It contains unique works, preserved only in four collections in Wrocław. These are works from the years 1608-1676 by Italian, German and Polish composers. The CD shows the broad musical horizons of the former inhabitants of Wrocław and the artistic splendour of the city.
Arvo Pärt – The Symphonies
Published by the ECM phonographic label, the latest NFM record of the Wrocław Philharmonic includes all four symphonies by Arvo Pärt, recorded under the direction of his music partner, Tõnu Kaljuste. Each of the symphonies, as Pärt once said, is a whole world in itself. Listened to in chronological order, they also tell us a lot about Pärt's musical and spiritual journey and about various ways of musicianship. Forty-five years divides Symphony No. 1 ("Polyphonic"), written in 1963, when he was still a student of Heino Eller, from the 4th Symphony ("Los Angeles"), written in 2008, when he was already the most-performed contemporary composer in the world.
The recording of the album was preceded by several months of collaboration between Tõnu Kaljuste and the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, connected with the celebration of Arvo Pärt's 80th birthday. As part of it, three concerts were organised: in Stockholm, Tallinn and Wrocław.
