Like a Phoenix from the Ashes, after a one-year break, the Krzysztof Penderecki International Festival – level 320 – returns. It returns in a different reality, increasingly dominated by digital algorithms, in which artificial intelligence (AI) “reigns”.

Will AI dominate the world of art, killing creativity by processing and replicating already existing works of human intelligence? Will festival programs be created by artificial intelligence? Will AI REX (“King – Artificial Intelligence”) reveal to us the grotesque, ominous face of the populist King Ubu from the final concert of the Festival? Or will it become a Promethean fire, as magnificently soundtracked by Beethoven in the overture of the aforementioned concert, lighting the path for great artists?

This year’s twelfth edition of the Festival, AI REX, which will take place from October 30 to November 7, is an attempt to answer the question about the role of artificial intelligence in art. 

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

The Festival inaugurated its activities on October 22, 2013, accompanying the celebration of Professor Krzysztof Penderecki’s 80th birthday, which we celebrated in the presence of the event’s very Patron. After the ceremonial planting of Japanese cherry trees – a gift from the Ambassador of Japan – we welcomed the Professor 320 meters underground, in the Guido Mine, with his Entrata for brass instruments and timpani. Then, following the laying of a foundation stone – aptly named and signed by the Composer himself – we began to “write” the history of the Festival with the Polish premiere of the quintet version of the Master’s work with the symbolic title Leaves of an Unwritten Diary.

PATRON OF THE FESTIVAL

Professor Krzysztof Penderecki was born on November 23, 1933, in Dębica. He studied composition with F. Skołyszewski, and later at the State Higher School of Music in Kraków with A. Malawski and S. Wiechowicz. He is the recipient of many national and international artistic awards, including: First, Second, and Third Prizes at the 2nd Young Composers’ Competition of the ZKP (1959), the State Award of the First Class (1968, 1983), the Award of the Polish Composers’ Union (1970), the Herder Prize (1977), the Honegger Prize (1978), the Sibelius Prize (1983), Premio Lorenzo Magnifico (1985), the Karl Wolf Foundation Prize (1987), Grammy Awards (1998, 1999, 2001), the Grawemeyer Music Award (1992), the International Music Council UNESCO Prize (1993), the Best Living World Composer Award (2000), and the Prince of Asturias Award (2001).