Music in Old Kraków

Music in Old Kraków (Muzyka w Starym Krakówie) is an annual musical festival held in Kraków, Poland during the second half of August. Every year, it gathers musicians from all over the country and abroad, giving them the opportunity to perform at the best and most unusual venues in Kraków.

One of the oldest cities in Poland, Kraków has traditionally been one of the country’s leading centers of academic, cultural, and artistic life, and is widely regarded as the cultural capital of Poland. It hosts many performing art events, including Music in Old Kraków, an annual music festival held in the historic Old Town, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.

Music in Old Kraków was created in 1976 by the renowned Polish composer, conductor and musicologist Stanisław Gałoński, the co-founder and long-time director of Capella Cracoviensis. The main goal of the festival was to fill the void during the seasonal break of Kraków’s music institutions and make the city even more attractive for tourists through the universal language of music.

It was Kraków mayor Jerzy Pękala who originally came up with the idea of a summertime music festival, and the city authorities provided the new event with all the necessary support. To this day, the City of Kraków is the main source of financing for the festival.

Music in Old Kraków does not focus on a specific musical genre, era, composer, or theme. The program is designed in such a way that every listener can choose the type of music that is close to them, from Renaissance and Baroque to contemporary. Artists are also free to choose the repertoire they are most comfortable with.

The only thing that all festival performances have in common is that they take place in historic venues in and around the Old Town of Kraków: churches, museums, courtyards, etc. Notable venues where concerts have taken place include the Wawel Royal Castle, Saint Mary’s Basilica, the Old Synagogue, the Kraków Cloth Hall (Sukiennice), the Jagiellonian University, the Arsenal of the Princes Czartoryski Museum, the Corpus Christi Basilica, the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music, and many others.

Since its inception, Music in Old Kraków has welcomed many notable musicians, vocalists, conductors, instrumental and vocal ensembles, and orchestras. Among them are:

• Pianists Piotr Paleczny, Ingolf Wunder, Krystian Zimerman, Fou Ts'ong, Christian Zacharias
• Harpsichordists Bob van Asperen, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Rafael Puyana
• Violinists Ida Haendel, Konstanty Andrzej Kulka, Shlomo Mintz, Daniel Stabrawa, Henryk Szeryng
• Classical and opera singers Gwendolyn Bradley, Emma Kirkby, Ewa Podleś, Paul Esswood, Andrzej Dobber
• Conductors Agnieszka Duczmal, Paul Esswood, Stanisław Gałoński, Christopher Hogwood, Jacek Kaspszyk, Jerzy Katlewicz, Kazimierz Kord, Schlomo Mintz, Krzysztof Penderecki, Witold Rowicki, Jerzy Semkow, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Antoni Wit
• Ensembles and orchestras: Anonymous 4, Capella Cracoviensis, Europa Galante, the Academy of Ancient Music, Hespèrion XXI, the Silesian String Quartet, Teatro La Fenice, Hilliard Ensemble, the Karakow Philharmonic, the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, the Silesian Philharmonic in Katowice, the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra

Music in Old Kraków is held from August 15 to 31 every year. It is takes place concurrently with Music in Old Lviv, its sister festival that has been organized in the Ukrainian city of Lviv since 2014.