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Programme Note

Paweł Szymański's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1994) was commissioned by Radio France for Ewa Pobłocka, to whom it was also dedicated. Szymański worked on it in the summer of 1994 as a guest of Refugiet Fuglsang on the Danish island of Lolland, far from all and any concerns, as he himself wrote. The Concerto was ready in autumn, and in February of the following year it was premiered in the Salle Olivier Messiaen at the Maison de Radio France, during the Présences Festival, by Ewa Pobłocka at the piano and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Antoni Wit. The same musicians made the first presentation of the Concerto to the Polish audience gathered at the Witold Lutosławski Polish Radio Concert Studio in Warsaw on 18th September 1995, during the 38th Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music.