Celebrating Feliks Janiewicz
14.11.2021
On 12th and 14th of November 2021, a series of music concerts was held in the newly renovated Polish Ex-Combatants House. Presented music included amongst others that of Feliks Janiewicz (1762-1848), an outstanding Polish violinist and composer, a musician of great importance for the Scottish music scene and a co-founder of the first Edinburgh Music Festival in 1815, whose work is unknown in Scotland.
A series of concerts, and talks presented by the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of F. Janiewicz Josie Dixon were the finale of the project which began in 2020. In 2021 The Friends of Felix Yaniewicz Foundation established by Ms Dixon (https://www.yaniewicz.org/), with the support of the Consulate and ‘Tydzień Polski’ newspaper from London, conducted a campaign collecting funds for the purchase of a piano formerly owned by F. Yaniewicz. The piano had previously been restored in Wales and then put up for sale. The patron of the Foundation is a British violinist of Polish origin, Jennifer Pike, who is a passionate promoter of Polish music. Numerous representatives of Scottish academic and musical circles, as well as of Polish diaspora organisations, including the Scottish Polish Cultural Association, and of the second generation of Polish military emigration joined the fundraising efforts.
The piano, purchased from the collected funds, was permanently placed in the main hall of the Polish Ex-Combatants House in Edinburgh. The instrument was delivered on 12th of November, just before the first official concert. The concerts were played by Steven Devine and Paweł Siwczak. Steven Devine is an outstanding conductor and pianist specialising in keyboard instruments, currently playing in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Paweł Siwczak on the other hand is a graduate of the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw and of the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he currently teaches. He specialises in playing period keyboard instruments.
Felix Yaniewicz was born in 1762 in Vilnius. As a young violinist, he went to Warsaw, where he played at the royal court. In 1785, as part of a royal scholarship, he travelled through Western Europe, where he gained great recognition as a violinist. He came to England in 1792. In 1813, Yaniewicz became one of the founders of the London Philharmonic Society. In 1815 he moved to Edinburgh, where he made a significant contribution to the development of the city's musical life, becoming a co-founder of the first Edinburgh Music Festival. It was in this city that the composer lived and worked until the end of his life. His grave is located at the Warriston Cemetery in Edinburgh.
Photographs by Barbara Eva Photography.
