A city of festivals

Festivals and early music concerts recall the history of the royal castle and the ensembles playing for the king during the Renaissance. Chambers of Wawel Castle, churches, chapels and synagogues throughout the city resound with music during events such as Music in Old Cracow and the Misteria Paschalia Festival held during Easter week. Classical music festivals have roots in performances held at salons of the aristocracy and the wealthy burghers as they gradually fell under Viennese influence, and in first music schools in Poland. Kraków is famous for its orchestras, choirs, musicians and composers, many of whom have links to the Academy of Music. And local doesn’t mean unknown! Many Cracovian composers or those who made Kraków their home are major names at concert halls the world over. In fact, there is more than enough material for an annual festival dedicated to music by Cracovian composers – how many other cities can boast such an event?

Kraków is also a city of literature. It was here that the first Polish libraries and scriptoriums were created, and the foundation of one of Europe’s oldest universities was linked with burgeoning national and European literature. The most important individuals in the history of Polish literature have always had ties to Kraków – it’s no wonder, then, that the city hosts nine literary festivals dedicated to different genres and forms. It also hosts Poland’s most important book fair, drawing tens of thousands of visitors every year. Although this is perhaps not widely known, before setting off for Marseille and onwards for his maritime and literary adventures, Józef Konrad Korzeniowski – better known as Joseph Conrad – had spent time living in Kraków. Today he is the patron of the international celebration of literature and thought; the Conrad Festival has been hailed as one of Europe’s five finest festivals by the European Festivals Association, and it has been twice nominated for the London Book Fair award. The Miłosz Festival, focusing on poetry, has roots in meetings held in Kraków in 1997 and 2000 under the patronage of local Nobel laureates Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska. It is a great celebration of world poetry held in a city which is home to hundreds of poets and translators and which publishes the highest volumes of poetry in Poland. The formula, treating great authors as a starting point and context for a major international event, explores the latest challenges faced by literature, language and the modern world as a whole. The organisers of the Copernicus Festival are guided by a similar mission; the event brings together representatives of sciences, the humanities and artists, which is a fantastic reflection of Kraków’s intellectual nous in and of itself. And of course its name serves as a reminder that Nicolaus Copernicus was perhaps the most famous graduate of the Kraków Academy, now the Jagiellonian University.

Kraków lives and breathes jazz. The city’s clubs and thriving scene produce six festivals held throughout the year. Kraków has a long, proud tradition of jazz: it is home to the “All Souls” Zaduszki Jazz Festival, Poland’s longest-running event of its kind held every autumn since 1954. Poland’s entire jazz community has been coming together since the 1990s for the Summer Jazz Festival Kraków culminating with the New Orleans Sunday with a parade taking to the streets and squares of the Old Town, rooted in local traditions and celebrated by favourite ensembles. The jazz spectrum also features the Jazz Juniors promoting up-and-coming musicians and the avantgarde Krakow Jazz Autumn celebrating improvised and experimental music.