Letter to Warsaw: An introduction by Mina Miller, Artistic Director, Music of Remembrance

Letter to Warsaw is the extraordinary musical setting of one woman’s intimate first-hand account of life in the grip of the Holocaust.  American composer Thomas Pasatieri created this powerful song cycle in 2003, setting six texts by poet/cabaret artist Pola Braun. Braun wrote these texts while in the Warsaw ghetto and in the Majdanek Concentration Camp, where she perished in 1943. 

Letter to Warsaw opens a window to the emotional life of all women trapped in the web of Holocaust tragedy.  Braun’s voice of witness ensures that she will not be swallowed up by the anonymity of history.  Through Pasatieri’s music, her words tell a story and remind us that each victim of the Holocaust was a unique individual.

Letter to Warsaw was commissioned by Music of Remembrance, a Seattle-based non-profit organization dedicated to remembering Holocaust musicians and their art.  To learn more about Music of Remembrance, visit www.musicofremembrance.org

Introducing Joanna Nowicka, the conductor of our concert

Joanna Nowicka was born in Kraków. There she began her musical education, graduating with straight A’s in piano and rhythmics from the secondary State School of Music. From 1981 to 1986, she studied music theory and piano with Professor Marek Koziak at the Kraków Academy of Music. From 1986 to 1990, Nowicka studied conducting with Professor Henryk Czyż at the Warsaw Academy of Music and was awarded a summa cum laude diploma there.

In 1987, she received the Mayor of Kraków scholarship for Young Cultural Creators.

In 1990, she successfully competed for the position of conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Sudety in Wałbrzych, with which she performed a series of concerts.

In 1991, she won a special recognition award at the G. Fitelberg International Conductors Competition in Katowice and received offers of positions at the Wielki Theatre in Łódź and the Silesian Opera in Bytom. Four years later she was a semifinalist in the semifinals of the same competition.

Between 1992 and 1997, as conductor of the Silesian Opera, Nowicka led a number of successful performances: Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Moniszko’s Halka, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, and Strauss’ Die Fledermaus.  In the Wielki Theatre in Łódź, she conducted Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.  In 1994 she was invited to lead the National Symphonic Orchestra of Polish Radio and Television in an archival recording of Henryk Czyż’s opera Białowłosa.

Nowicka has led symphony orchestras in Kraków, Poznań, Łódź, Lublin, Szczecin and Toruń, working with chamber and symphonic music, as well as concert versions of operas.

In 1999, Nowicka opened a private music school for children, “Da Capo,” of which she remains the headmistress and manager.