Kalisz Philharmonic

Kalisz claims to be the oldest town in Poland, identified with the Calisia that Ptolemy marked on the amber route running from the Adriatic to the Baltic, and the town has turned that inheritance into a festival: the Multimedia Amber Road Festival, in which the orchestra has taken part. The rest of the year the Philharmonic does what a Polish provincial philharmonic does, and does it for a public that would otherwise travel to Poznań or Łódź for the same music — a symphonic subscription series, visiting soloists, concerts for schoolchildren, and a core repertoire in which Mendelssohn's "The Hebrides" has had its place. The Kalisz Philharmonic began as the Kalisz Symphony Orchestra in 1974, on the initiative of Andrzej Bujakiewicz. It became a state institution in 1980 and adopted the Philharmonic name in 1993. Alongside symphonic concerts, it developed chamber ensembles, educational programmes and festival activity, including participation in Chopin in the Colours of Autumn. In 2001 it collaborated with Poznań's Grand Theatre to establish an operatic stage in Kalisz, inaugurated with Mozart's The Magic Flute.