Starting with the 2014/15 season, the New Music Orchestra runs its own concert cycle, presenting monthly programmes of the latest music and 21st-century classics at the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra seat in Katowice.
What is new music? Is it the opposite of "old" or "early" music, its continuation and extension of tradition, or rather a definite act of rebellion and breaking off from the past? Why do we have "new music" in the first place? Didn't they only play new things at the times of Bach and Mozart? So, what has changed that we willingly go back to "museum pieces"?
The whole surrounding world has changed. As a result of scientific, technological and communication development, more has happened in the world over the past ten years than it did over 500 years in the Middle Ages. These days, specialisation is so developed that the man in the street can hardly understand quarks, gravitons, and other notions of physics, or complicated integrated circuits in devices we use every day, such as mobile phones or computers. Nevertheless, we all make use of innovations developed by pioneers.
A composer is in a way a researcher or a lonely wanderer. They often go to places which nobody has visited before – such is their task. Their music is a result of sensitive perception of the surrounding world and their mental (or maybe spiritual) inside. The present times are extremely interesting, yet full of tensions, dilemmas, quests. Artistic quests are often an attempt to reach the crux of the matter, whatever it may be.