Versatile Stylist
Homage to Wojciech Kilar
Appreciated as a particularly daring composer by lovers of the European post-war avant-garde, the musician Wojciech Kilar, who was born in Lviv in 1932 and died in 2013, also had a lasting influence on film music. His film music oeuvre includes works for major international productions such as Bram Stoker's Dracula as well as compositions for auteur filmmakers, most notably Krzysztof Zanussi and Kazimierz Kutz. Kilar's filmography includes over 100 titles.
Trained at the Katowice Academy of Music in the first half of the 1950s, Kilar studied abroad at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music and in Paris with composer and music teacher Nadia Boulanger. Katowice, however, developed into the central location of his multifaceted artistic work. Here, Kilar was not only inspired by places, people and landscapes, he also worked with the musicians of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, who recorded many of his compositions in the film studios in Łodź. Kilar is not only active as a composer, he also usually orchestrates himself. Several film works find their way into orchestral programs, including the waltz from Jerzy Hoffman's melodrama Trędowata (1976), which is popular in Poland. Like no other Polish composer, Wojciech Kilar thus embodies a type of artist whose film scores spring from the diverse talents of a versatile stylist. (Stephan Ahrens)
The tribute to Wojciech Kilar takes place as part of the filmPOLSKA festival and the program focus History and Education, which is supported by the Cultural Promotion Fund of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
