UK, Ireland / Very First Polish Cultural Festival in Edinburgh April 2009 [7]

Dear All,

I would like to announce that our festival project is going well so far. We have managed to secure almost all of the funds needed to organize series of exciting cultural events. I hope that festival will bring us- Poles and Brits together and that the scope and the variety of events will allow everybody to find something for themselves.

For more information please visit our website polishculturalfestival.org.uk.

Our programme is growing bigger and bigger... More details soon on our website.

All the best and hope you will join us during the festival events!

Alternatively you can drop me a line and I will send you an information pack. Email me at: joanna@polishculturalfestival.org.uk

Tickets on sale for 1st Polish Cultural Festival in Edinburgh

Tickets are now on sale for the very first Polish Cultural Festival in Edinburgh. The week-long celebration from20-26 April will feature nearly thirty events, staged at fourteen different venues throughout the capital.

Lidia Krzynówek, -festival founder and director, said: “The Festival has been programme, fund-raised and staffed entirely by a voluntary network of Polish people most of whom are under 30 and all of whom work full time alongside these commitments”.

“It is our wish that the Festival will allow our Scottish friends to gain deeper understanding of who we are and for everyone in Edinburgh to unite inn doing what they do better than anywhere rising a glass!”

The Festival will feature: traditional folk music and dance, retrospectives by the founding fathers of Polish cinema, theatre, art exhibitions, lectures by eminent historians, a medieval tournament and market and much more… As a whole, the Festival speaks in the voice of young Poland and the culture that is a vibrant of Scotland today.

Some of the big-guns of Polish culture appearing at the Festival include premier jazz musician Jarosław Śmietana, famous film director Krzysztof Zanussi, and mountaineer Piotr Pustelnik – great people and great artists.

The official Opening Celebration of the Festival is on Thursday 23rd April at the Queen’s Hall with the very best of Polish traditional folk musicians, the St. Nicolas Orkiestra and folk singing and dancing group “Krakowiacy”.

25 April, Leith Links Park will be staging a Polish Medieval Tournament and Market. The day will be packed with entertainment, thrilling combat, dancing and good old fashioned fun.

The Festival has the support of the Consul General of the Republic of Poland Aleksander Dietkow, who said: “I hope that this Festival will not only help the integration process but also help people to understand Polish culture better and through this to understand Poles even without knowing the language of our country”.

Malcolm Chisholm, MSP for Edinburgh North and Leith, commented: “The programme on offer from Polish Cultural Festival Association will, I believe, be of enormous appeal both to the many Polish people in Scotland and also to the wider Scottish community. I am enormously impressed by the outstanding efficiency and enthusiasm of those who are organising the Festival”.

“We have tried to include something for everyone in the community to enjoy and warm Polish welcome awaits all our visitors,” added festival co-director Joanna Zawadzka.

-ENDS-