AFTER a three-year break, the Friends of Chopin Australia are back on the podium celebrating 50 years of Polish-Australian diplomatic relations with – what else? – a concert called “Chopin Vive”.

Billed as a spectacular evening of Chopin masterpieces, it’s the first in a series of recitals over the next 12 months and features the talent of Konrad Olszewski from Melbourne playing works by Fryderyk Chopin, Karl Tausig and Karol Szymanowski.

Long-time Friends’ president Ben James says the idea is to reconnect with “our friends (our audience) and our mission” and that subsequently Penelope Thwaites will perform in February with friends from the CSO, and Alexander Yau and emerging musicians in May.

I caught up with Olszewski by phone in Melbourne. 

Born in Australia to Polish parents, he was brought up in Melbourne, started playing at about age six and, as a young musician in 2005, gave a recital in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, Chopin’s birthplace, in the midst of snow. 

He completed his master of music under Glenn Riddle, at the University of Melbourne, where he received the JS Bach Prize, the Lady Turner Exhibition Prize and the Searle Piano Faculty Merit Scholarship. 

Now working as a freelance soloist and associate artist, his day job is as a repetiteur for Melbourne Opera. He is also an in-demand accompanist, for which he has received the Barry Bowen Accompanist Award and has twice won Best Accompanist in the National Liederfest. He also plays jazz.

Olszewski says there’s a special art to being an accompanist – an ability to sight read.

“In accompanying, the art is to devote yourself to the harmony, of course, but also you need sensitivity to the soloist.

“You have to follow whatever is required. Chopin said you should always listen to singers as that is the very best way to understand how to play melody.”

There is a huge difference, when it comes to playing solo music, as he will be doing in Canberra. 

“You have more freedom to express whatever possibilities you wish. You have to let yourself go to some extent, you have to cross the boundaries as far as possible and that means you need more time to practice,” he says.

He won’t be using a score when he performs here, which will add to the sense of freedom – “the music can speak if you don’t have to refer to pieces of paper”.

He is familiar with Canberra, having performed for the Friends of Chopin Australia in the past, and in early August this year played with a violinist for the inauguration of the Embassy of Latvia.

Olszewski is quick to point out that he won’t just be performing works by Chopin in “Chopin Vive”, he will also perform works by Tausig and Szymanowski as “part of the culture”.

Specifically, he will open with Chopin’s famous “Funeral March” and his “Nocturne in E flat major” Op. 55, No. 2, but will then go on to play the grand piano extravaganza ,”Réminiscences de ‘Halka’ de Stanislaw Moniuszko” Op. 2 by Tausig, who had impressed Franz Liszt at age 14 with a performance of Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise.

After interval, Olszewski will play Szymanowski’s “Masques” Op. 34, a musical triptych involving three masked literary characters, Schéhérazade, Le Bouffon and Don Juan, before a suite of Chopin’s etudes and preludes, and winding up with two “grandes valses brillantes”.

A fine way, Ben James says, of celebrating the creative contributions of Polish-Australians and the strong bonds of friendships with Australia.

“Chopin Vive”, All Saints, Ainslie, 7pm, Saturday, November 19.

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