The 92-year-old Holocaust survivor Simon Gronowski and classical pianist Kosta Jakić: An unmissable performance full of compelling music.
The evening opens with a vibrant jazz session by Simon Gronowski. Kosta Jakić performs the fragment of the ‘Piece for the Speaking Pianist: De Profundis’ by Frederic Rzewski, inspired by Oscar Wilde’s letter, written during his imprisonment. Kosta Jakić also plays Chopin’s ‘Mazurkas’ and ‘Balade’ recalling memories of Ita Gronowski, Simon’s sister who was murdered in Auschwitz. Finally, both pianists play quatre-mains.
In 1943, Simon Gronowski was eleven years old when he was arrested and was imprisoned for one month in the Dossin barracks. He managed to escape the 20th convoy by jumping off the train. Chana Kaplan, his mother, and Ita Gronowski, his sister, did not survive the Holocaust. Today, Simon Gronowski is a doctor of law and a renowned jazz pianist.
Kosta Jakić is a Belgian pianist of Yugoslav origin and conductor. Since 2014, Kosta Jakić has been performing solo recitals across Europe. In September 2021, he graduated cum laude from the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp. He is currently studying medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He is vice president of the ‘Belgian Doctor Symphony Orchestra’ and researches the role of music in the conditions of detention camps and prisons, working actively to bring the music into the prisons with the organization ‘Looking at the stars’.
Programme
16:30: Doors
17:00: Jazz session by Simon Gronowski and clarinetist André Ronsse
17:30: Fragment of ‘Piece for the Speaking Pianist: De Profundis by Frederic Rzewski’ and ‘Chopin’s ‘Mazurkas’ and ‘Ballade’ by Kosta Jakić
18:20: Quatre-mains by Simon Gronowski and Kosta Jakić
18:45: Projection of the trailer of an intergenerational film about Kosta and Simon by Ivan Put.
18:55: Projection of the drawings by Christophe Poot and Xavier Lowenthal, accompanying Kosta’s Jakic’s recital dedicated to the role of music in detention.
19:00: End
This concert is part of a film project with Ivan Put. It is an initiative of and a cooperation between: PhD In One Night, Laboratory for Radical Peace, Orangeries de Bierbais and Fondation La Nacelle