Traditionally, at the end of August – this year between 22 and 29 August 2021 – in Jarosław, Podkarpacie region, the Early Music Festival “Song of Our Roots” takes place, which we have been happy to visit and report on for years.

This year, by giving concerts, participating in seminars, conducting workshops, singing at liturgies, Jarosław hosts a large group of musicians who are also our friends and collaborators. Marcel Pérès, who, inter alia, he has conducted our workshops several times, and also runs one of the two festival workshops. The Jarosław meeting is a continuation of work on the so-called With the Occo Code. The central part of the post-workshop concert will be the mass “Pange Lingua” by Josquin Desprez, whose 500th death anniversary falls this August. The Corpus Christi Mass will be performed in the Corpus Christi collegiate church in Jarosław, the oldest post-Jesuit church in Poland.

The second concert by Marcel Pérès will be “Musique pour Maciej – Music for Maciej” or piano improvisations, which will be performed on a historical piano from the collection of the late Maciej Kaziński. The concert will be held at the Church of oo. Reformed.

The Lithuanian group GŠ Ansamblis, which has participated and performed at our Extraordinary Music Workshops, will also perform in Jarosław. During the festival, he will perform baroque devotional songs in Lithuanian from Catholic and Evangelical sources. Many of them testify to the common culture of the Republic of Poland. In songbooks from the territory of old Lithuania, one can find the oldest known records of songs that still function in the Polish oral tradition (e.g. Christmas carols). The concert will be an approximation of the Lithuanian side of the common tradition, which is still very little known to us.

The second festival workshop will be conducted by Andrij Szkrabiuk, who also led one of the sections of the recent Extraordinary Music Workshops. Under his guidance, the participants prepare the songs that make up JEREKOJAN: JERG KJURAKAMTIC – Armenian Vespers from Saturday to Sunday: “Song of welcoming the Lord’s Day”, and HOQEHANGIST – Armenian service for the dead, which will also commemorate the deceased artists.

You will also be able to listen to the Jericho ensemble, which will perform a program of singing the solemn Marian votive mass for Advent, from its introit called “Rorats”. Arte dei Suonatori, conducted by Marcin Świątkiewicz, with a guest participation of Bruno Cocset, will perform a jointly prepared program, which will consist of eighteenth-century instrumental pieces. On the other hand, Justyna Rekść-Raubo in the basement of the Collegiate Church of Corpus Christi will perform the works of J.S. Bach, Mariana Marais, Tobias Hume and his own improvisations as part of the night nocturne.

It is customary for the entire duration of the festival to hold a series of thematic seminars. Daily Masses are also celebrated, as are Gregorian Matins and Vespers; there are also workshops of the Dominican chant according to Jerome of Moravia, preparing for the office.

Our Foundation is represented this year by Father Wojciech Sznyk OP and Szymon Burek, a special representative of the Liturgia.pl portal.