Ferenc Liszt Society in Poland
Ferenc Liszt Society in Poland (TiFL), founded in Wroclaw on 2 March 1989, is a nationwide association with the aim of popularising music with the main stress laid on the output and the person of Ferenc Liszt himself as well as his connections with Polish culture. TiFL conducts artistic, didactic and popular scientific activities, emphasizing different ways of promoting talented youngsters (concerts, competitions, grants, courses, publications, records for the radio and television).
Concerts. In over 1150 concerts held so far, above 700 performers from 33 countries took part (some of them played many times), including 349 pianists, 45 other soloists, 23 performers of chamber music, 6 conductors, 6 actors, Witold Lutoslawski" Philharmonic Orchestra and "Harmonology" Orchestra in Wroclaw, Symphony Orchestra of Philharmonic in Zabrze, Symphony Orchestra in Rybnik and the National Opera Choir from Warsaw.
Apart from outstanding artists with international fame (such as Zsuzsa Elekes, Eugen Indjic, Sofya Gulyak, István Lantos, Victor Merzhanov, Karol Radziwonowicz, Janusz Olejniczak), about 300 young artists, including 190 Poles, performed at the concerts. Being accompanied by 16 lecturers and 3 interpreters, they performed around 1400 pieces of 210 composers ranging from Baroque to the contemporary music (including about a 166 compositions of F. Liszt, over 170 ones of F. Chopin and almost 50 pieces of I.J. Paderewski), playing in 85 concert halls (60 of them in Poland, the rest abroad - in Budapest, Györ, Moscow and St Petersburg). Since December 1989, we have been carrying into effect a series of monthly "Liszt Evenings" always accompanied by a specially chosen and prepared foreword, which, beside giving basic information on music, is intended to motivate full perception of presented pieces and further contacts with artistic music.
Competitions. We have organized 4 international (1999, 2002, 2005, 2008 - where applied 177 pianists from 28 countries) and 4 nationwide F. Liszt piano competitions (1991, 1993, 1995, 1997 with 63 participants). The prize-winners, beside one year's high grants, had the opportunity to take part in dozen or so concerts in Poland as well as abroad. The international competitions turned out to be on a very high artistic level and they could be next to Wratislavia Cantans to render Wroclaw famous at the international music field and become a partner for the F. Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
Courses. Since 1993, we have organised international master piano courses in Wroclaw - the event already renown in professional music circles. 604 pianists from 30 countries took part in them. Professors were the most outstanding artists-pedagogues: Halina Czerny-Stefanska (Krakow, Poland), Andrzej Jasinski (Katowice, Poland), István Lantos (Budapest, Hungary), Lee Kum Sing (Vancouver, Canada), Victor Merzhanov (Moscow, Russia), Alexei Orlovetsky (St Petersburg, Russia) and Boris Petrushansky (Imola, Italy). Apart from hundreds of interesting open classes, there were 103 concerts of the course participants in various venues (e.g. Philharmonic Hall in Wroclaw, Silesian Castle in Brzeg, Chopin Manor House in Duszniki Zdrój). Every year some of our course participants achieve significant artistic successes (vide "Current affairs").
We have also organised 16 nationwide piano courses with over 1000 participants (about 770 teachers and 257 pupils from over 70 Music Schools as well as a few foreign pianist led by Alexei Orlovetsky).
Publications. We have published four issues of "Zeszyty Lisztowskie" (scientific publications about Liszt), 14 Information Bulletins in Polish, English and German, brochures of all courses and competitions, programme booklets of international competitions, and programmes of all concerts.
CDs. We have released 7 CDs. Thanks to Petrus Facta et Creata label, we have released four CDs from the series "Popular Piano Pieces" (including recordings from the 2nd and 3rd editions of the International F. Liszt Piano Competition and from "Liszt Evenings"). Three CDs ("4th International F. Liszt Piano Competition in Wroclaw", "1000 Liszt Evenings - Piano recitals of Sofya Gulyak",and Piano recital of Alexei Orlovetsky) were made with financial help from the Lower Silesia authorities.
The Seat of the Society is in Wroclaw, the city where in 1843 Liszt gave fifteen concerts, conducted an opera spectacle for the first time, and gained enormous popularity. Then, he also performed in Nysa and Brzeg, places where "Liszt Evenings" are held each month. In 1859, F. Liszt performed again as a composer and conductor in Wroclaw. After World War II, Wroclaw became an important centre of musicological study of Liszt.
TiFL is composed of around 220 members from 4 countries. The Society, having no office workers, bases mainly on free of charge contribution of its members, financial help from the authorities of different levels, from many institutions, firms and private sponsors. Juliusz Adamowski has incessantly been its President since the founding in 1989.