The music of Dr. Mikolaj Gorecki is set to once again grace the Pvt. David B. Barkley Cantu Veterans Memorial Chapel at the historic Ft. McIntosh Campus on April 4 from 6 to 8 p.m. Performed by Trio Zenia and Dr. Rachel Woolf, the concert is free and open to the public and is a grand opportunity to listen to the world-renowned compositions.
The program will consist of five of Gorecki’s pieces written in the last several decades. These are “Sonata for Piano Op. 34,” “Farewell for Violin and Piano Op. 33b,” “Variations for Flute and Piano Op. 19” and “Sonata #1 for Violin and Piano Op. 11.” Gorecki said that the final composition presented will be “Six Bagatelles for Violin, Cello and Piano Op. 5.”
Written by Gorecki, Laredo College piano and music professor, audience members will have a chance to listen to compositions that convey his roots and love for music.
“My only interest has been music itself. My greatest dream as a child was to be able to write music, especially for orchestra,” Gorecki told The University of Southern California’s Polish Music Center. “The problem was that I grew up at home where the word ‘composer’ was almost sacred; it was reserved for geniuses like Bach, Beethoven, etc.”
He continued, “Naturally, I could not say openly my dreams when I was very young. Later, when I was a teenager, my father discovered by chance that I had been writing music and began to support me in that. But this did not change the fact that even today I do not see myself as a composer, only as a guy who writes music.”
Playing his compositions will be a collaborative effort.
Trio Zenia is made up of three gifted musicians from Texas: Jacob Schafer, Patricia Ryan and Jeong-Eun Lee. Collectively, they hold degrees from Rice University, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music, University of Southern California and Yale University. Their stop at Laredo College comes days after performances in San Antonio and Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Woolf is an Assistant Professor of Flute at the University of Texas at San Antonio School of Music and will play alongside Trio Zenia for one of the compositions. She has been featured prominently at the National Flute Association Convention (NFA), including playing three consecutive years on the NFA Gala Concerts and serving as the Local Arrangements Chair for the 2024 convention in San Antonio.