Each piece in the programme of the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra conducted by the Polish conductor of the young generation, Anna Sułkowska-Migoń, has the through line of migration. Each of the featured composers was born in today's Ukraine. Historical turmoil and personal choices caused the artists to settle down in Poland or in other countries.

The concert will begin and end with the works of Jadwiga Szajna–Lewandowska, an artist, pianist and teacher born in Brody and educated in Lviv. She belongs to the same generation as Witold Lutosławski and Andrzej Panufnik, continued her education in Wrocław and settled there. She specialised in writing stage works for children, but during this concert Aleksandra Kubas-Kruk will perform some of the Twelve Songs, written in 1972. Roman Palester, who belonged to the same generation, could not find his way in the communist reality after World War II and decided to emigrate to France, whereto he made his first journey before WW2. The first version of the dark, disturbing Nocturne was created in 1947, and the second one was completed in 1954. Born in 1932 in Lviv, Wojciech Kilar travelled many times in his life. After short periods spent in Krosno, Rzeszów and Kraków, he settled down in Katowice, where he spent the rest of his life. He completed his education in Darmstadt and Paris. Over the years, he developed a distinctive, communicative musical language. The Chorale Prelude was composed in 1988. This is one of many works in Kilar’s oeuvre reflecting his fascination with highland folklore and minimalism.

The work of Lviv resident Bogusław Schaeffer belongs to a completely different trend of 20th-century Polish music, as he was a born avant-gardist and provocateur. The Monosonata from 1959, intended for twenty-four string instruments, is one of his best-known works. Elżbieta Sikora is an artist who finds music everywhere, “in gusts of wind, in the rain drumming on the windowsill, in the rhythm of architectural forms, in the flight of birds, in people’s conversations in the subway, in the rumble of carriages on the rails, in the noise of machines, in the shouts of crowds, in the words being read,” as she admits. Her work will be represented by the dramatic composition Rappel III, completed in 1998. The Musica per archi is a work by Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar from 1962. This artist was also a teacher, and she associated her professional life with the Kraków Academy of Music. She included her motto in the following words: “The most important thing in the proposal you make to the listener is to achieve an expression that can move them.”