Family concert: In the world of the silk dragon

A family concert full of humor, during which sound, movement and acting together create a world in which both children and adults will happily immerse themselves.

Performers:

Anna Krysztofiak — koto, yakumogoto, gekkin, shakuhachi, taishokoto, singing

Paweł Szulik — shakuhachi flute

Justyna Balwierczyk — piano

Katarzyna Kropidłowska — Gryzelda

Marcin Mlynarczyk — Felix

Martyna Jewartowska — Intonation

Concert without interruption.

Anna Krysztofiak

Artist of the Łódź Philharmonic Choir, a multi-instrumentalist in the field of Asian instruments, old keyboard and string instruments and a vocalist specializing in traditional and historical vocal techniques. She completed her master's studies at the Department of Art History of the University of Lodz with a “medal for honorable studies” and devoted her master's thesis to historic organs. He performs traditional music on a range of Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese instruments, as well as Asian vocal styles and techniques. She is probably the only European woman to perform Nanguan songs in a conservative Taiwanese style in her permanent repertoire. This was appreciated by ethnomusicologists and sinologists present at the CHIME international conference in Lisbon in 2018. She trained her performing workshop under the guidance of outstanding musicians and educators in Europe, Asia and Africa, including Mark Caudle (viola da gamba, Poland), Prof. Chen Ching-yi (guqin, Taiwan), Prof. Lin Po-chi (Nanguan, Taiwan), Prof. Kyoko Kubota (yakumogoto, Japan), Abdou Ouardi (oud, Morocco), Prof. Marek Toporowski (harpsichord, Poland), and many other outstanding musicians. From 2009 to 2010 she was the organist of the Polish parish in Brussels, working at the Church of Notre Dame de la Chapelle and in Leuven. At the same time she did an internship in organ building at the Manufacture d'Orgue Patrick Collon studio. Anna Krysztofiak was awarded artistic and scientific scholarships, including a Taiwan Fellowship, in the class of Nanguan music at the Department of Traditional Music at Taipei National University of the Arts, under the direction of Prof. Lin Po Chi. In 2015-2017 she was the artistic director of the Festival “Music in the Chinese Garden” in Łazienki Królewskie in Warsaw, and this festival was her own project. Since 2019, he has been permanently cooperating with the festival “Word and Music in the Jesuits” as part of concerts and recordings of music from Jesuit sources and colonial music. She is the originator and organizer of musical meetings at the Lodz House of Culture entitled “Łódź Fan. Interdisciplinary meetings with culture”, which have been part of the permanent programme of the ŁDK since 2023. Since 2024, he has been cooperating with the Evangelical and Reformed Church in Warsaw as part of the concerts “Music for Winter Time”. As part of the Taiwan Fellowship program, her music activities are under permanent Taiwanese patronage. She is the author and executor of numerous musical and educational projects, including a number of grants from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of an educational and popularizing nature. As part of one of them, she wrote a popular science book with stories about Asian instruments entitled “Peculiar Instruments Happy Islands” (ISBN: 978-83-960247-0-1), published by the Center for Asian Affairs of the University of Lodz. Music on Chinese and Japanese instruments graced the visits of diplomats from the Far East, who are guests of the Government of the Republic of Poland, including Princess Hisako Takamada, as well as during the visit of the President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping. In 2025 she was awarded the Honorary Badge “Meritorious for Polish Culture”.