Jakub Polaczyk: (Poland/USA): Vestiges in My Recent Works

This lecture presents selected recent compositions by composer and pianist Jakub Polaczyk, focusing on Medical Symphony (2025), Kentucky Bluegrasp (2023), Ojibbeway (2019), and an overview of three compositional cycles: Chrosets, Chodoks, and Slavic Streams.

The lecture explores Polaczyk’s compositional techniques and his concept of the musical diary, in which works function as layered records of personal, historical, and cultural experience. His music investigates the intersections of memory, history, and contemporary life, drawing on European musical traditions while engaging with American social and cultural landscapes. Central to this approach is the idea of vestiges—traces of past music, literature, and visual art that are transformed and recontextualized through a contemporary compositional language.

Polaczyk’s output spans orchestral, chamber, vocal, and interdisciplinary works, often developed in close dialogue with performers, institutions, and specific cultural environments. The lecture focuses particularly on recent orchestral and chamber works, highlighting dialogues with Native American musical traditions, Asian instrumentation, and the Slavic roots of dramaturgy and expression. The composer will also discuss his vision of a surrealistic synthesis of techniques and musical elements as a guiding principle in his recent work.