This year has been declared the year of Edith Stein, who became the saint and patron of Europe. Wrocław was her home city because it was here that she was born in 1891. During the war, she was captured by the Nazis and died a tragic death in the concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The concert of the soloists, the NFM Choir and Wrocław Baroque Ensemble conducted by Andrzej Kosendiak will be an event honouring the memory of the saint on the eve of her liturgical remembrance.

Edith Stein went down in history as a philosopher seeking a path to spiritual growth. She conducted broad scholarly activities, focusing on phenomenology. She gave up the Jewish faith and converted to Roman Catholicism, and her sincere desire to pursue the truth led her to enter the Carmelite nunnery in Cologne. Edith Stein was last seen on 7 August 1942 at the Main Railway Station in Wrocław during a stop of a train carrying her along with other Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The concert with the participation of soloists and ensembles of the National Forum of Music – the NFM Choir and Wrocław Baroque Ensemble š will be dedicated to this Edith Stein, a very special member of Wrocław community. The compositions performed will include works of Renaissance and Baroque composers, such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Claudio Monteverdi, Johann Sebastian Bach, and François Couperin. The programme will also include works by Polish composers: Mikołaj Zieleński, who worked at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, and contemporary artists: Marcin Tadeusz Łukaszewski and Łukasz Urbaniak.