SYMPHONY CONCERT — SYMPHONY MASTERPIECES

NATALIA DRAGAN violin
FŚ SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
JERZY SALWAROWSKI conductor
OLGA POLOWCZYK assistant conductor
Johannes Brahms - Violin Concerto in D major, Op.77
Feliks Mendelssohn-Bartholdy - 3rd Symphony in A minor Op.56 Scottish

The concert will begin with one of the most important works of the romantic violin repertoire - Johannes Brahms Concerto in D major, Op. 77. The song is not just a show for the soloist. In it, the violin part is closely woven into the sound of the orchestra, thanks to which the concert has an almost symphonic character.

The elaborate Allegro non troppo opens a broad musical narrative, followed by a calm Adagio. The whole is closed by the exuberant Allegro giocoso. Natalia Dragan will perform in the solo part.

After the break, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's Symphony No. 3 in A minor Op. 56, called Scotland, will be played. The four parts form a coherent whole — from the moody beginning and the restless Allegro, through the light Scherzo and the lyrical Adagio, to the final ending with the solemn Allegro maestoso assai.

The FŚ Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Jerzy Salwarowski and the assistant conductor will be Olga Polowczyk.

Natalia Dragan violinist of the young generation, born in 2009. He comes from a musical, violin family and is educated at the Fryderyk Chopin Music School Complex in Legnica. She began learning to play at the age of five and a half, and already a year later she made her debut as a soloist with an orchestra.

She is the winner of the Grand Prix and the main prizes of more than fifty national and international competitions, organized among others in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hong Kong, Germany, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden, USA and Italy. She has performed in prestigious venues in Poland and abroad, including the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the Royal Łazienki and the Krzysztof Penderecki European Music Centre. In the 2025/2026 season she performed as a soloist of the Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra, and in 2026 she took part in the 9th National Violin Festival in Kielce.

Jerzy Salwarowski conductor, composer and educator. He graduated from the Academy of Music in Krakow, where he studied composition in the classes of Tadeusz Machl and Krzysztof Penderecki and conducting under the direction of Henryk Czyż and Krzysztof Missona. He also honed his skills at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena under the direction of Franco Ferrara.

He is a laureate of the most important national and international conducting competitions, including competitions in Katowice, Siena and Budapest. He has conducted orchestras in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, collaborated with leading Polish symphony, opera and radio ensembles, and participated in numerous festivals, including Warsaw Autumn and Pražské Jaro. He held the functions of conductor and director of, among others, the Opole Philharmonic, the Silesian Philharmonic, the Grand Symphony Orchestra of the Polish Radio, the Silesian Opera, the Pomeranian Philharmonic and the Lublin Philharmonic. It also carries out pedagogical, scientific and editorial activities. In 2026, he celebrates his 80th birthday, remaining an artistically active and touring conductor.

Olga Polowczyk (born 2003)

in 2025 she graduated with honors from the I.J. Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań, in the symphonic conducting class of Dr. Aleksander Gref. In 2024 and 2026, as part of the Erasmus+ program, she also studied at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, in the class of Prof. Simeon Pironkoff. During her studies she also participated in numerous master classes in Poland and abroad, developing her conducting skills under the guidance of such outstanding conductors as Jorma Panula, Norbert Baxa, Marek Pijarowski, Luis Gorelik and Lawrence Foster, while also having the opportunity to work with many orchestral ensembles — including the Lithuanian State Orchestra Symphony Orchestra of Andalusia, Symphony Orchestra of the Province of Entre Ríos (Argentina), Philharmonic of Kalisz.

Her interests are contemporary music. She has performed, including premieres, works by composers associated with the Poznań community — Michał Janocha, Artur Kroschl and Ewa Fabiańska-Jelińska. In 2025, as part of a conducting workshop, she collaborated with the Divertimento Ensemble, which resulted in the performance of Homing by Spanish composer José Manuel López López in Milan.

He is currently pursuing his master's degree at the I.J. Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań.