Paweł Mykietyn: 3 for 13
Wolfgang A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 22 E flat Major KV 482
Allegro
Andante
Allegro
***
Henryk Czyż: Divertimento B-dur “Meine kleine Haydn Musik” (1947/77)
Wolfgang A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 C Minor KV 491
Allegro
Larghetto
Allegretto
Elisabeth Leonskaja, piano
Sinfonietta Cracovia
Marzena Diakun, conductor
ELISABETH LEONSKAJA
The pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja is one of the most important performers of our time. In 2020, she was awarded the International Classical Music Award (ICMA) for her life’s work. A few years earlier, she received the country’s highest award, “Priestess of Art,” from her native Georgia. In her adopted home of Austria, she was also awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First Class, for special services to the country’s culture. In 2024, she received the Wigmore Hall Medal in London.
She owes her artistic development to the legendary pianist Sviatoslav Richter, who recognized and promoted her extraordinary talent early on. The partnership between the two developed into a friendship and lasted until Richter’s death in 1997.
In 1978, Elisabeth Leonskaja left the Soviet Union for Austria and celebrated the start of her great career with an acclaimed concert at the Salzburg Festival. Since then, she has performed as a soloist with leading orchestras and conductors around the world and has given solo recitals in all of Europe’s major concert halls.
As a pianist who always wants to get to the quintessence of the works and who feels committed to the whole of music, chamber music is close to her heart in addition to solo performances. She had a long-standing musical friendship with the Alban Berg Quartet; their joint recordings are considered legendary.
Elisabeth Leonskaja’s extensive discography is adorned with numerous awards. She has received the coveted Caecilia Prize and the Diapason d’Or, among others. She has recorded all of the piano sonatas by Franz Schubert and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 2024, the piano concertos by Robert Schumann and Edvard Grieg were released with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Sanderling. Her most recent solo album is dedicated to the Second Viennese School – Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg.
MARZENA DIAKUN
Praised as a conductor of immense temperament, convincing with sureness, energy and the detailed power of her baton, Polish conductor Marzena Diakun has reached veteran status at a young age. 2nd Prize winner of two major international conducting competitions (Prague Spring Competition 2007 and Fitelberg Conducting Competition 2012), she focuses on orchestral and choral works by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Shostakovich, as well as her country´s greatest composers – Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Karlowicz and Szymanowski. Sought after for her interpretations of the French and Bohemian masters, her performances are described as remarkably balanced, finely nuanced, and deeply felt, knowing how to dazzle with her mastery and the height of the gesture, and how to obtain from an orchestra density, expressiveness, and details.
From the 2026/2027 season, Marzena Diakun will take over the position of chief conductor of the Rheinische Philharmonie State Orchestra in Koblenz. She will perform with the orchestra as designated chief conductor from May 2025. The season 2024/25 sees her return to orchestras such as the Komische Oper Berlin, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern and the Residentie Orkest in the Hague and initiate new relationships with others like NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
Her newest recording of Brahms’ works for choir and orchestra (Label IBS) with Orquesta y Coro Comunidad de Madrid, of which she was Artistic Director and Principal Chief Conductor until the summer of 2024 has been greatly hailed by the press.
The new relationship with Ensemble Intercontemporain is the culmination of two decades of premiering and performing new works by numerous Spanish, Dutch, Austrian and Polish composers. Her recording, Polish Heroines of Music (Label PWM) is an exemplary model of her savoir-faire and commitment.
Herself a teacher and a mentor at the Music Academy in Wroclaw, she looks back on inspiration and support from great conductors such as Kurt Masur, Pierre Boulez and Marin Alsop.
The concert was organised in cooperation with the Polish Music Publishing House as part of the TUTTI.pl programme promoting Polish music performances.