Polish composer to write music for Beijing Olympics'opening ceremony
12/2/2007 16:21
World famed Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki will
write a piece of music to be played during the opening ceremony of the 2008
Olympic Games in Beijing, deputy head of the Polish Olympic Committee Ryszard
Parulski told reporters yesterday.
Penderecki is one of the most important
contemporary musician and is honoured as "the living Bethoven" by commentators.
His best known pieces include Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960),
oratorio Dies Irae to the memory of people murdered in Auschwitz (1967) and
religious works like St Luke's Passion (1965), among other
pieces.
Penderecki's career as a conductor began in 1972 and has conducted
almost all the famous orchestras around the world. He has long been the
conductor of the Norddeutsche Philharmonie and the Warsaw Philharmony and is the
chief guest conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1961,
Penderecki won the highest prize offered by the UNESCO with his Threnody for the
Victims of Hiroshima. He was granted the Grammy Awards in 1988 and in 1999 and
was entitled the Best Contemporary Composer in Cannes, France in 2000.
Xinhua
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