Often regarded as the greatest piano composer to ever live, Frédéric Chopin (1810 – 1849) was also one of the greatest pianists during the Romantic Era, which was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement in Europe from about 1800 to 1850. He is commonly recognized as one whose poetic genius was based on a…

Czeslaw Slania (1921 – 2005) was a Polish postage stamp and banknote engraver who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was the most prolific of all stamp engravers with over 1,000 stamps to his credit. In addition to creating stamps for Sweden (300 different issues) and 29 other countries (the remaining 1,000 or…

Piotr BeczaÅ‚a (born 1966) is one of the most sought-after tenors of our time and a constant guest in the world’s leading opera houses. The Polish-born artist is acclaimed by audiences and critics alike not only for the beauty of his voice but also for his ardent commitment to each character he portrays. He has…

Mazowsze Performance – Finale Mazowsze (pronounced “mah-zove-shehâ€), named after Poland’s heartland where the capital Warsaw is located, is one of two of the country’s National Folk Song and Dance ensembles. The other is ÅšlÄ…sk (pronounced “shlonskâ€), which will be included in our Arts & Culture page. Both groups have made folk dance a spectator sport…

StanisÅ‚aw Lem’s books have been translated into more than 50 languages and have sold more than 45 million copies. Worldwide, he is best known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris. Throughout a career that spanned six decades, Lem produced more translated works than any other Polish writer. His bibliography includes 18 novels, 14…

Poland’s interwar period was between 1918 and 1939. In November 1918, World War 1 ended and Poland was re-established as a nation state. Twenty-one years later, in September 1939, Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland, which began World War 2 and thus ended Poland’s interwar period. During this time, three Polish women emerged as the country’s…

This prolific Polish-Jewish composer, who created hundreds of songs and many orchestral pieces, passed away in July 2000, two years before the film “The Pianist†premiered. He miraculously escaped the Germans’ destruction of Polish Jews and survived the war in Warsaw. Wladyslaw Szpilman began his first piano lessons with his mother and went on to…