This Saturday, March 26, we invite you to a jubilee concert as part of the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the Dominicans in Poland, during which the “Requiem for the Victims of Covid”, composed by Dawid Kusz OP, will be premiered.
On March 12, 2020, the media reported the first fatal victim of the coronavirus pandemic in Poland, a 56-year-old anonymous resident of Poznań. Over the past two years, the disease has claimed the lives of 110,000 Polish women and Poles – just like her – without names, without surnames, without faces. People turned into numbers in the daily statistics.
Two years after the outbreak of the pandemic, on March 26, 2022, at 8:30 p.m. in the Basilica of the Holy Trinity. Dominicans in Krakow, we want to honor all victims, commemorate them and express our gratitude to the medics fighting for the lives of the sick. In this way, art and religion will create a space for mourning together. We trust that this concert will not only be an aesthetic experience, but will become an important symbol of the unity of Poles in the face of the tragedy of suffering and death of parents, siblings, children and friends. May the beauty of the music and spiritual concentration bring comfort and refreshment to the relatives of the victims.
The Requiem was composed by a young Krakow composer, lecturer at the Pontifical University of John Paul II, Fr. Dawid Kusz, OP. The piece was commissioned especially for this occasion.
The concert will take place in the Basilica of the Holy Trinity at 12 Stolarska street in Krakow. The Sancta Trinitas chamber choir and invited instrumentalists will perform. Beginning at 20:30, admission free. Feel free to share the event on Facebook and listen to recordings of previous concerts available on our YouTube.
Dawid Kusz – Dominican. Born in 1979 in Rzeszów. He entered the Dominican Order in 1998, and in 2005 he was ordained a priest. He graduated with honors from the Academy of Music in Kraków at the Faculty of Creativity, Interpretation and Music Education, majoring in artistic education in the field of musical art, specializing in Leading Vocal and Vocal-Instrumental Ensembles and Teaching Music and Theoretical Subjects. In 2014, he defended his doctorate with honors at the Academy of Music in Krakow in the discipline of conducting. In 2012, he began studying composition, first in the class of prof. Zbigniew Bujarski (BA), and he graduated in 2016 in the class of prof. Józef Rychlik.
He was the conductor of the choir and orchestra during the World Youth Day in Krakow (2016) and during the Holy Mass. ending the 800th anniversary of the Order of Preachers under the leadership of Pope Francis in the Lateran (2017). He is a lecturer of music and theoretical subjects (as an assistant professor) at the Intercollegiate Institute of Church Music in Krakow and a member of the Archdiocesan Liturgical Music Commission.
