The Penderecki Contemporary Classics’ Festival is the renamed edition of the “Contemporary Classics” Composers’ Festival, established in 2019 by the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and supported by the European Foundation for Support of Culture.
To this day, it continues to be the only festival in Armenia to entirely feature living world legends of classical music. The festival is a unique opportunity for music enthusiasts to meet prominent contemporary classical composers in the capital city of Yerevan and connect with their musical legacy.
Renowned virtuosi Mario Brunello, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Ning Feng, Boris Berezovsky, Daria Tchaikovskaya, Leticia Moreno and other remarkable artists have performed masterpieces of great contemporary and 20th-century composers, such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Arvo Pärt, Tigran Mansurian, Sebastian Fagerlund, Kaija Saariaho, Valentin Silvestrov, Qigang Chen, Giya Kancheli, Alexey Shor, Georgs Pelecis, Karl Jenkins and Alexander Tchaikovsky, some of whom have honored the festival with their presence.
After bidding farewell in 2020 to the late Krzysztof Penderecki, the legendary Polish composer and conductor, one of the most outstanding figures of the 20th-century classical music and a good friend of Armenia, the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra committed itself to titling the festival by Maestro’s name, as a tribute to his grandeur. The Penderecki Contemporary Classics’ Festival is privileged to be the only festival in the world named after the great composer.