A ceremony will be held on Saturday 29 October at the Royal Monastery of Yuste church to mark the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the Fathers of the Pauline Order at Yuste’s Monastery of Saint Jerome. It has been organised jointly by National Heritage, the Polish Embassy, the European Academy of Yuste Foundation, and the Polish Cultural Institute.
Pablo Stępkowki, Prior of Yuste’s Pauline community, said the event has been planned as a “result of the kindness everyone has shown us since we arrived”, adding that “it is a way of showing who we are and where we come from so people can learn a little more about us”.
As part of the commemoration there will be a thanksgiving mass at 10.30, followed by the talk Jasna Góra Monastery (Częstochowa, Poland), centre of musical culture, led by Professor Remigiusz Pośpiech at 11.30. The monastery is considered one of Poland’s most important pilgrimage sites.
Finally at 12.00 there will be a concert led by the Schola Gregoriana Cardinalis Stephani Wyszynski conducted by Michał Sławecki, which will debut Gregorian chant pieces performed for the first time five centuries after they were composed. “The chants had been lost, and the professor and concert conductor have been working on reviving them for the last ten years. Now finally they will be heard again after being lost for so many years”. The concert showcases the important work the Pauline Order has carried out reviving the original musical scores, offering the public the chance to discover important pieces of musical liturgy that are a part of our European cultural heritage.
Entry to the concert is free (until capacity is reached).
Professor Remigiusz Pośpiech
Head of the Department of Historical Musicology at the University of Wrocław’s Institute of Musicology, and professor at the University of Opole’s School of Theology. Since 2016 he has been Vice-President of the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Arts Committee. He is also co-founder and musical editor of magazine Liturgia Sacra. Liturgia – Musica – Ars, member of the boards of several scientific journals and author of over 300 publications. In 2007 he received the Flauta de plata (Silver flute) for his outstanding achievements and contribution to religious music in Poland.
Schola Gregoriana Cardinalis Stephani Wyszynski
Since 2013 the choir has performed a repertoire of classical forms of Gregorian chants as well as post-classical works. The choir is part of a project to record the entire plainchant from the musical archives at Jasna Gora for the prestigious Musica Claramontana series. In 2015 they won the Grand Prix of the national Ars Liturgica competition at the Primate’s Basilica in Gniezo, and this year won the Musica Sacra prize and came second place in the LVI International Choir Competition in Olomouc (Czech Republic). Schola performed, among other pieces, Requiem from W.A. Mozart with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra to commemorate the centenary of the First World War at Saint John’s Centre in Gdańsk (Poland).
Michał Sławecki
Organist, conductor, composer, expert in Gregorian chants, and artistic director of the XXIX Organ Conversatorium in Legnica. Since 2012 he has worked as associate professor at Warsaw’s Frédéric Chopin University of Music. From 2003 to 2013 he was organist and cantor at the Academic Church of Saint Anne in Warsaw. He is conductor of the Stefan Wyszyński Cardinal University choir in Warsaw. He is also the founder, president, and conductor of the Schola Gregoriana Clamaverunt Iusti choir. He conducts the Schola Gregoriana Cardinalis Stephani Wyszynski which he also founded.
