In 2027, the Lutosławski Quartet celebrates twenty years of work. For the occasion, this resident ensemble of the NFM and one of the most important string quartets in Poland, has prepared and will premiere a project titled Crossing. There is no doubt that it will go down in the annals of music – not just classical!

The Lutosławski Quartet currently brings together violinists Roksana Kwaśnikowska and Marcin Markowicz, violist Artur Rozmysłowicz, and cellist Maciej Młodawski. But other distinguished musicians have also left their mark in the group’s history. Jakub Jakowicz and Bartosz Woroch have previously served as first violinists. They all continue to collaborate, as evidenced by the NFM’s 2025 album of compositions by Ernest Chausson. The quartet, well-known to audiences, has decided to celebrate its anniversary as befits artists who defy conventions. The proposed Crossing concept combines traditional forms of music-making and classical technique with modern creative practices. The Lutosławski Quartet will employ diverse forms of expression: from jazz, through improvisation, to electronica. Therefore, their anniversary concert will not be merely a conventional ritual in which four virtuosos present a series of self-contained pieces. By using synthesizers, loopers, guitar, mandolin, and percussions such as the kalimba and tongue drum, the performers will become composers (as it was in olden days), and the work will be the fruit of an open creative process.

Crossing is also a dialogue with the quartet’s twenty-year history: selected motifs and sonic ideas from past concerts and projects will be processed and transformed in a new aural context. This is not a reconstruction, but a creative reinterpretation of the quartet’s own work, constituting a kind of musical autobiography. This unique project has been commissioned by the National Forum of Music, in whose history the Lutosławski Quartet is a crucial chapter that continues to be written.