--------------------------------------------------------------
ROZSZERZONA
RZECZYWISTOŚĆ
DŹWIĘKOWA
ROZSZERZONA
RZECZYWISTOŚĆ
DŹWIĘKOWA
POCKET PHILHARMONIC 2026
Exciting musical adventures and sonic contemplations beyond anything cultural managers have ever dreamed of.
******
Pocket Philharmonic 2026
“If the mountain will not come to Muhammad…”. Philharmonies around the world are wondering how to reach new audiences—people who are not necessarily drawn to the idea of a two-hour concert consisting solely of music composed two hundred years ago. What if, instead, we brought fresh music to places where audiences already engage with live culture? Galleries, theatres, cinemas. A short format, emotions entering into dialogue with a specific film, performance, or exhibition, and the atmosphere of intimate, acoustic, at-home music-making.
That is the Pocket Philharmonic.
Over 80 mini-concerts at the Dramatic Theatre, Muranów Cinema, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and Centrum Jasna 10. Without leaving Chopin’s city, we will visit five continents and nearly 20 countries, while reflecting on whether the heart of new music truly beats in the North today. We invite you to exciting musical adventures and sonic contemplations beyond what cultural managers have ever imagined.
Organizer: Automatophone Foundation
Co-organizers: Gustaw Holoubek Dramatic Theatre, Muranów Cinema, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Centrum Jasna 10, Warsaw Autumn
Co-financed by the funds of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund under the “Music” programme, implemented by the National Institute of Music and Dance.
The project is co-financed by the City of Warsaw.
******
June 23, 2026, at 7:30 PM
Before the screening of "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" as part of the Sisterhood Cinema series
Venue: Kino Muranów, screening room (before the film)
Wojtek Blecharz - Map of Tenderness
Performed by Mikołaj Pałosz – cello
Franz Schubert - Winterreise
Performed by Joanna "Halszka" Sokołowska – voice
How do we know which gaze is permissible? Are our eyes allowed to touch the hands, the torso, or perhaps only the head? Is it only a brush that is acceptable, or also rubbing, tugging, striking? And are we certain we know where tenderness ends and violence begins? Perhaps the lonely heroine is condemned to an eternal, solitary journey. Unless she finds solace in the embrace of music... So many questions, so few answers.
******
June 20, 2026, at 8 PM
Before the screening of "Milk Teeth" as part of the New Romanian Cinema Festival
June 21, 2026, at 8 PM
Before the screening of "La Gomera" as part of the New Romanian Cinema Festival
Venue: Kino Muranów, screening room (before the film)
Doina Rotaru - Japanese garden
Perf. Ewa Liebchen - flutes
The sun of the Carpathians scorched the Romanian musical avant-garde perhaps the least. This was because seeking inspiration in archaic folklore and the intellectual traditions of Orthodoxy was acceptable from the standpoint of the official ideology of Marxist-Thracian nationalism. At the same time, composers like Octavian Nemescu, Stefan Niculescu, and Doina Rotaru reconciled native elements with the latest discoveries in psychoacoustics, ethnography, and theoretical physics, creating an exciting vision of timeless, universal, and cosmic music. Thus, Doina Rotaru's flute works transport us simultaneously to Thracian antiquity, the imperial court in Kyoto, and an entirely different dimension. Have a wonderful journey.
******
June 12, 2026 approx. 18:40
June 13, 2026 approx. 16:40
Gustaw Holoubek Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw, before the play "Anioł zagłady"
Location: foyer of the big stage
FREE ADMISSION
Paweł Mykietyn – Sonata
Performed by Mikołaj Pałosz – cello
Although the sinister cruelty of the trap of convention was fully exposed to us by Luis Buñuel, no one in Gombrowicz’s homeland needs convincing that this trap actually exists. Meanwhile, we were taught to contemplate its tragic beauty by two composers: Paweł Szymański and Paweł Mykietyn. Take the latter’s Sonata. A genre name. Technically, it means nothing more than "to sound," yet it instantly triggers hundreds of clichés and stereotypes. On top of that, a lonely man and his cello. He will probably play Johann Sebastian. And indeed: the lucid symmetries and leisurely flowing motifs sound familiar. But the whole thing seems to limp, play out of tune, stammer. Has the time of this music long passed, or is it only just arriving? Or perhaps it endures in a sinister timelessness? There will be no other end of music...
******
June 6th, 2026
Free admission, mandatory RESERVATION
18:00 - classical West African music
performed by Noums Dembele
18:30 - Joshua Uzoigwe – Agbigbo
performed by Adam Kośmieja - piano
Venue: Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warszawa
******
29 May 2026, approx. 7:40 PM
Kino Muranów, before a screening part of Maré. Festival of Portuguese-Speaking Cinema
Venue: café area
Sergio Krakowski - Eleven Hard Samba
Alexandre Lunsqui - Iris
Performed by Miłosz Pękala – pandeiro, berimbau
******
May 23, May 26, June 10, July 18, July 19, 2026, approx. 19:15
Gustaw Holoubek Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw, before the performance "Muszenie"
Location: foyer of the Small Stage
Wojtek Blecharz – Map of Tenderness
Performed by Mikołaj Pałosz – cello
A dysfunctional family is like a well-rehearsed chamber ensemble — it relies on a precise division of roles and on the cruel yet astonishing harmony that emerges from it. But music never remains purely abstract, because it can exist only through matter: its vibrations, its cry, its silence. It takes on a body that all too closely resembles an autonomous human being. So much so that it can be touched. But do we really know which kinds of touch are permissible? Is it acceptable to touch the head, or only the body? Is only a gentle stroke allowed, or also rubbing, pulling, striking? And do we truly know where tenderness ends and violence begins?
When I was eighteen, my drunken father tried to beat me for the last time, striking me with open palms, alternating between left and right, only to meet the unwavering resistance of hands that were already those of an adult. When violence failed him, he burst into tears, embraced me, and said, “I love you.” It was the only time he ever confessed his love to me.
This note was not written by the composer of Map of Tenderness, but by one of its listeners — one among many. In Poland, there are three million of us.
******
19 May 2026, approx. 8:00 PM
Kino Muranów, before the screening of the film “Silent Friend”
Venue: Kino Muranów, café area
Classical Japanese music | Katarzyna Karpowicz – koto
The highest form of practicing the Chinese zither gǔqín is to refrain from producing any sound at all. Contrary to appearances, this is not a musical practice but a philosophical one, oriented toward what a contemporary Westerner might call “deep listening to the world.” John Cage understood this well when composing his most famous work, 4′33″ - 273 seconds of silence, precisely notated in the score and yet impossible to achieve in practice. The spiritual teacher of the American composer, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, came from the Land of the Rising Sun, but the Zen Buddhist tradition he represented would never have emerged without ancient Chinese Taoism. To this day, Japanese monks use the bamboo flute shakuhachi as a tool for meditation.
The koto zither, whose beauty captivated Katarzyna Karpowicz, is nowhere to be found in Buddhist temples. For centuries, Japan’s national instrument could only be encountered at the imperial court. Despite the different setting, it was accompanied by the same philosophy of music, sound, and listening. More important than admiring the melody is attentively listening to the natural resonance filling the space. For the sounds of the koto are ultimately meant to reveal the moments of silence hidden between them - moments that express the profound nature of reality itself. Perhaps silence is our most important “silent friend”?
******
8-10 May 2026
Gustaw Holoubek Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw, before the performance "Jubileusz" ("Jubilee")
8 May approx. 19:00
9 May approx. 19:00
10 May approx. 17:00
Location: ground floor – platform by the cloakroom
Michael Nyman - I'll Stake My Cremona to a Jew's Trump
Performed by: Anna Kwiatkowska – violin; Aleksandra Demowska-Madejska – viola; Kosma Standera – magic and electricity
An unfinished opera based on a nine-volume novel masquerading as an unfinished autobiography? Michael Nyman’s music to the ramblings of Mr. Tristram Shandy sounds like Mozart’s melodies (a coincidence? I don’t think so…) played by the Sex Pistols after Malcolm McLaren took away their guitars and handed them string instruments instead. You can try to make sense of the text, but it may be better to let yourself be carried away by the classicist punk of this English leftist who, before becoming a sought-after film composer, was nearly starving as a court critic and theorist of homeless experimental music. In I’ll Stake My Cremona to a Jew’s Trump there is both Buckingham Palace and the London docks, as well as the working-class pubs where Nyman supposedly spent the better half of his life. One wonders whether it was in one of those establishments, over a pint of golden pale ale, that he admitted: “I’m no discoverer. Basically, I deal in using, stealing, acquiring, reproducing, and recycling other people’s music.”
******
Organizer: Automatophone Foundation
Co-organizers: Gustaw Holoubek Dramatic Theatre, Muranów Cinema, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Centrum Jasna 10, Warsaw Autumn
Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund – a state purpose-specific fund, as part of the "Music" program implemented by the National Institute of Music and Dance.
The project is co-financed by the Capital City of Warsaw.
