About  Festival

We are pleased to announce the International Festival of Rediscovered and Forgotten Music – an exceptional musical event –  the only one in the world. Every year since 1994  our Festival has been held  in Tarnow and 19 cities of Poland. The idea of Festival is to present  forgotten and freshly rediscovered music by well known and forgotten composers, written hundreds years ago and found at present in the castles, churches, museums, private houses.  During former 14 festival editions we had here music from main music libraries in  Berlin,  Vien, Jagiellonian University’s Library in Cracow, Prague  National  Library of Music, King’s Castle Library in Caserta, Brussels as well as in Museum in Tarnow,  Closter in Staniatki, Kiev -Lavra Orthodox Church, private castles in Cornwall, England, Scotland…
Among all pieces written in the past for soloists, orchestras, chamber ensembles, choir,  and presented here, most of them were of great worth for Polish and European Heritage.  During all festival concerts we had here again new-old pra-premieres, for instance :  unknown music from Wawel Kings Castle in Cracow  of XIV - XVI c  – written for Polish Kings specially recently rediscovered early orthodox  liturgy and songs from Kiev Lavra Orthodox Church,  piano music from 8 years old  W.A. Mozart’s  “sketchbook”,  concerto for alpen horn and orchestra by Leopold Mozart, oratorium  by Austrian Emperor – Leopold I,  improvisations for organ from “Wedding sketchbook” by A. Bruckner, piano sonatas and fugues  by F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, piano music by Oginski dynasty,  unknown piano music by V. Bellini, G. Puccini, G.Verdi, percussion-piano duo  music written specially for Napoleone Bonaparte, songs  by K. Stohl found in Museum in Tarnow….  Special and unique concert was with ancient Christian songs by anonymous composers, found in II and III c in Asia Minor and combined with Slavonic liturgy from IX and X c.
International Festival of Rediscovered and Forgotten  Music desires to extend the concert experience by using Polish well known  cultural-historical treasures as concert venues.  Thanks to the Festival, most of presented here music, has been coming  back to the world concert halls and supplements  encyclopaedias as well as  music catalogues. Lots of presented during Festival pieces were registered by Polish and International Radio and TV. Many of them are on CDs.

During 1996 – 2002 International Festival of Rediscovered and Forgotten Music was under the auspices of President of Poland – Mr. A. Kwasniewski, who favoured us personally  in 2000 during  opening ceremony.
At present,  International Festival of Rediscovered and Forgotten Music is under auspices of Mr Bogdan Zdrojewski - Minister of  Culture and Polish National Heritage.

 Welcome to festival concerts

Teresa KABAN  and  Henryk BLAZEJ
Directors of Fesival