The fifth annual Solidarity of Arts festival opens on 17 August 2013 in Gdansk. This year again the organizers are making sure that Gdańsk continues to be the most exciting place to visit for arts enthusiasts from Poland and abroad.
The simple idea of bringing together world-class artists to a place as important to the European values and history as Gdańsk has worked extremely well so far. Making art of highest quality happen on site and often in public spaces of the city is proving to be infinitely more powerful than 1000 political conferences or rallies on togetherness and freedom brought together. In Gdańsk were created many events that remain in people’s memories long after the festival, as shown by the 2010 Możdżer+, the 2011 Marcus+ and the 2012 Stańko+. I, CULTURE Orchestra, who kicked-off their European tour during the Solidarity of Arts festival in August 2011, went on to become one of the highlights of the Polish EU Presidency’s cultural programme. In 2012, a Michał Bielawski film “Mundial. The Highest Stakes” premiered during the Solidarity of Arts festival and since then went on to successfully conquer audiences at documentary film festivals in Poland and overseas.
In 2013 organizers do their best to stay true to the artistic-quality-first principle of the Festival. Guided by that principle organizers are proud to announce that the headlining star of the 2013 Solidarity of Arts is the brilliant US conductor and vocalist Bobby McFerrin. The McFerrin+ show on three stages on 17 August will feature music from his two extraordinary projects: VOCAbuLarieS and SpiritYouAll. The latter premiered – and was since then enthusiastically received – in the United States on 14 May 2013. Among Polish acts invited to take part are Atom String Quartet (winners of the 2013 Fryderyki awards for Best Polish Album in Jazz), legendary jazz vocalist Urszula Dudziak and the European jazz-rock forerunners, Laboratorium. One of world’s best female choirs, The Bulgarian Voices – Angelite, and the Zelig of jazz Gil Goldstein (author of arrangements written specially for our McFerrin+ concert), are among foreign stars who will honor Solidarity of Arts with their presence in Gdańsk for the second time in three years. On 25 August the Baltic Opera will stage “Maria”, a 1903 masterpiece by Roman Statkowski, adapted and directed by Michael Gieleta. The opera with its “new” 1980s Solidarity context was already nominated in The Irish Times poll during the 2011 Wexford Festival Opera in the “Best Opera” category.
The closing night of the festival (8 September 2013) will feature Yehudi Menuhin Academy chamber orchestra performing alongside Maxim Vengerov, widely considered one of world’s greatest living violinists.
The Solidarity of Arts festival is organized by cultural institutions of the Pomorskie province, together with the City of Gdańsk, the Polish Film Institute, the European Solidarity Centre, the Polish Baltic Philharmonic and the Ministry of Culture and National
More detailed information at: Solidarity of Arts