Anna Karpowicz

I actively collaborate with composers in Poland and around the world, and have performed over a hundred world premieres, including flute concertos, chamber music and solo works. I seek out new means of expression by developing my own extended performance techniques, but in contemporary music I am most interested in contextuality and the creation of meaning.

My experiments with the presentation of classical and contemporary music, and my passion for narrative programming, have always remained within the scope of my role as a classically trained flautist and have not gone beyond the boundaries set by my degree from HfM Detmold. Although I have received many awards ‘for courage’, a barrier has emerged in my artistic work that is difficult to overcome.

Combining my roles as a flautist and curator, I have often composed my own pieces out of necessity or inspiration. It was on my initiative that albums such as AVE VIRUS by Hashtag Ensemble or SYRENA:RE recorded for FSR with Dominik Strycharski were created. I wrote two site-specific pieces set to the poetry of Irena Klepfisz, which were broadcast on Radio Two – a dream come true for many a composer in Poland. Despite this, I have never identified myself as a composer.

My residency at WOK is not only intended to help me embrace a new and more direct form of expression, use new tools and explore new ways of practising art, but above all to ‘come to terms with’ my new role – that of a composer.

An EXPERIMENT begins in the realm of meaning-making, in the sphere of the imagination and fundamental beliefs – who I am, what defines me, and what is possible for me. Every artistic form is created within the boundaries set by the artist. My task during the residency at WOK is to work on pushing those boundaries.

I have been working in music continuously for 25 years; I graduated from the Detmold University of Music, and I am a recipient of the Polityka Passport Award and the Koryfeusz Award for Polish Music, alongside the Hashtag Ensemble, which I founded. I have been awarded the ‘Meritorious to Polish Culture’ Medal, as well as two Fryderyk Awards. I was a fellow at the European Music Council and graduated from the Leadership Academy for Poland. Last year, I was nominated for Forbes magazine’s Woman of the Year award for launching the Droga Dō festival.

Together with Marek Bracha I run the WarszeMuzik festival, bringing classical music to the remaining tenement houses in the former Warsaw Ghetto. I co-founded the Mieczysław Wajnberg Institute, named after one of my favourite composers. I co-founded Hashtag Lab as a Community Cultural Institution, initiated the AżTak Festival, and managed its repertoire programme. I programme the international Droga Dō festival, in which concerts in Japan play a special role.

My favourite genre is chamber music, and my mission is to create warm and authentic gatherings that revive the tradition of making music at home. Hence the WarszeMuzik courtyard concerts, the establishment of Hashtag Lab in an old villa, the ‘Mietek’s House Party’ initiative at the Wajnberg Institute, and the sound installation at the Sugihara House as part of the Droga Dō festival.

I am unable and unwilling to divide classical music into historical and contemporary, composed and improvised, notated and intuitive, a fact reflected in the seventeen albums I have recorded for ANAKLASIS, KAIROS, Bołt, DUX, FSR or Requiem Records.