Postcards from Poland

Conductor
Anna Sułkowska-Migoń
Piano
Aristo Sham
Cześć from Poland! Guest conductor and La Maestra competition winner Anna Sułkowska-Migoń leads the MSO through a series of musical postcards from her home country, beginning with a frenetic overture by Grażyna Bacewicz. Gold medalist of the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Aristo Sham, a musician with “a nobility rarely heard from any pianist” (Dallas Morning News), performs the first piano concerto by Poland’s pride, Chopin; its music is rife with reverie and bounce. Wojciech Kilar’s Orawa takes its name from a local highland region and depicts the forces of nature; Kilar has called Orawa “the only piece in which I wouldn’t change a single note.” Finally, Mieczysław Karłowicz’s symphonic poem Eternal Songs is an allegory for being human, moving through love, longing, death, and “The Song of Universal Existence.”