vOTING

For the second time in the history of the Polish Music Critics Competition, we invited the audience to vote! The Audience Award (funded by the Management Board of the MEAKULTURA Foundation) went to the author of the best book on music published in 2017.

He received an award worth PLN 2,000 funded by the Management Board of the MEAKULTURA Foundation

Andrzej Mądro

for the book Music and new media. Polish electroacoustic works at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

THANK YOU TO THE AUDIENCE FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE PLEBISCITE

Below we present the book nominations recommended by the Jurors of the Polish Music Critics Competition and the MEAKULTURA Foundation.

Rafał Ciesielski, Polish jazz criticism of the 20th century. Issues and attitudes.

Western musical culture, when creating a formula for public musical life, included a space for reflection on music – music criticism. Its task was primarily to comment on current events in the field of music, but also to address all issues related to musical culture. Rafał Ciesielski’s book touches on a new subject of interest in 20th century music criticism – jazz – initially perceived in an aura of exoticism and therefore perceived as a phenomenon worth attention.

Publishing house of the University of Zielona Góra

Michał Klubiński,Bohdan Wodiczko.A conductor in the face of modern musical culture.

A monograph on the activity of an outstanding Polish modernist conductor – Bohdan Wodiczko (1911–1985), the author of the comprehensive revival of the Grand Theater in Warsaw after World War II, an uncompromising propagator of 20th century music marked by tragedy. The work discusses the conductor’s activity, but it belongs to a genre that treats this artistic activity more broadly, manifesting itself not only in the concerts themselves, but in the entire musical life. The intellectual world of an artist-performer described in this book is rare in Poland, and thus becomes a treasure that musical culture should strive for and undertake in the next era, after the one to which the artist himself belonged.

Universitas

Stanisław Moryto, Muzyka z mojego życia.

The author of the book, Stanisław Moryto, carefully collects memories made up of time spent and music experienced. The title of the memoir expresses it precisely: Music from my life and reveals the author’s awareness of the superiority or indispensability of art to existence. “Everything has its time and there is an appointed hour for every thing under heaven.” The words of Ecclesiastes, consciously recalled by the author of Music from My Life, are a natural coda to the reported years, not the last ones in the life of an outstanding creator, social worker and manager.

Musica Sacra Publishing House

Adam Kukła (red.), Tadeusz Kościuszko – Artysta.

The album titled Tadeusz Kościuszko – Artist is a unique publication created on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the hero’s death. The entire publication consists of three components. The first is a richly illustrated book containing popular science essays by art historian Dr. Paweł Ignaczak and musicologist Adam T. Kukla, the editor-in-chief and author of the album’s concept. Both texts are complemented by the second and third elements, i.e. twelve reproductions of Kościuszko’s drawings and a sheet music.

Polish Music Publishing House

Ewa Stala, Historia tanga dla początkujących i zaawansowanych.

The History of Tango for Beginners and Advancedis a book for everyone interested in this dance to a greater or lesser extent – hence the internal division into two main parts. The first part, for beginners, is the story of its birth and evolution to the present day, situated in historical, geographical and social context. The second part, for advanced students, consists of a series of short sketches on the presence of tango in literature, cinema, visual arts, its philosophy, its presence in other countries, etc. This is the first monograph on the Polish publishing market devoted to this beautiful and increasingly popular cultural phenomenon, but also an attempt to show that tango is much more than dance.

Universitas

Michał Libera, Michał Mendyk, M.U.Z.Y.K.A.

What is music? Where to look for it? How to create it? Musicians and composers have been asking themselves these questions for centuries. But over the last 100 years, many of them have found answers that no one had previously dreamed of. In contemporary music, anything can happen! And that’s what this book is about. In 44 concise and accessible chapters, the authors present selected composers, musicians and their works, using their examples to show various ways of thinking about sound, music, composing and being a musician. Among the heroes you will find, among others: John Cage, Steve Reich, Arnold Schoenberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Paweł Szymański and Iannis Xenakis, as well as The Beatles, Brian Eno, Einstürzende Neubauten, Kraftwerk and Madonna.

Two Sisters Publishing House

Andrzej Mądro, Muzyka a nowe media. Polska twórczość elektroakustyczna przełomu XX i XXI wieku.

This is the first monographic work devoted to electroacoustic music, published by the publishing house of the Academy of Music in Krakow and one of the few that deals with this extensive trend of music in Poland. In the first two parts, he discusses the history of electroacoustic music, its media (electrophones), trends, poetics, aesthetics and explains many concepts, and in the last part he focuses on the electroacoustic works of selected Polish composers, including artists associated with the Academy of Music in Krakow, i.e. Magdalena Długosz and Marek Chołoniewski. The book has been enriched with numerous photographs, diagrams and musical examples, as well as an index of names. It is also worth mentioning that Andrzej Mądro’s doctoral thesis, which is the basis for the book, received the prestigious Award of the Polish Composers’ Union in 2016. Father Professor Hieronim Feicht.

Academy of Music in Krakow