Eufonie Music Festival 2025 — An Invitation to Awaken the Senses

There’s a moment every year when Warsaw slows down, the light softens, and the city begins to listen. And no, I don’t mean the sound of leaves crunching underfoot.

November in Warsaw is when Eufonie — the International Music Festival of Central and Eastern Europe — returns, filling the autumn season with concerts that illuminate the city’s evenings. If you’re wondering what to do on those longer, quieter nights, take this as an invitation: dress in your favorite clothes, step inside a concert hall, and let music become your companion.

Eufonie has always been about contrasts... It’s a festival that invites you to listen differently — to notice how melody carries both memory and emotion.

It’s become something of a ritual for me — coming back to Eufonie to remember how beautiful it is simply to listen. Last year, I spent an evening surrounded by the echoes of Venceslao, re di Polonia — a baroque opera filled with drama, grace, and an almost cinematic sense of emotion. I still remember how the voices floated through the concert hall — fragile yet powerful, as if time itself had stopped to listen.

Now, in its 7th edition, the festival carries the theme „Afterglows & Afterimages” — a metaphor for what music leaves behind. Because to truly experience life, we need to awaken all our senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

And among them, music may be one of the most immersive — the one that lets us feel so deeply, embracing the body with its vibrations, emotions, and memory.

*And I have a small treat for you — find an exclusive promo code for the festival at the end of this article.

Between tradition and experiment

Eufonie has always been about contrasts: the familiar and the new, the quiet and the bold. It’s a festival that invites you to listen differently — to notice how melody carries both memory and emotion.

... unexpected dialogues — between Baltic minimalism and Balkan energy, between folk rhythms and modern electronics.

This year’s program moves freely — from classical masterpieces to contemporary reinterpretations, from traditional melodies to experimental soundscapes.

There’s Mendelssohn’s elegance and Mahler’s intensity, Chopin’s intimate lyricism and Penderecki’s monumental spirituality. And there are unexpected dialogues — between Baltic minimalism and Balkan energy, between folk rhythms and modern electronics.

A journey across cities

What makes Eufonie more special is that it travels — unfolding across ten cities between 13 November and 7 December: from Warsaw and Kraków to Katowice, Gdańsk, Łódź, Olsztyn, Opole, Lusławice, Dębica, and even Bucharest.

In each place, the music takes on a different tone — grand in Warsaw’s National Opera, intimate in Kraków’s MOCAK or the Manggha Museum, contemplative in the Penderecki Centre in Lusławice, or resonant in the concert halls of Katowice and Gdańsk.

Highlights worth experiencing

The festival opens with Olga Pasiecznik and the Equilibrium String Quartet, bringing new life to rarely heard Polish Romantic pieces — from Chopin’s songs to works by Moniuszko and others.

Later, Julian Rachlin joins Sinfonia Varsovia in a program contrasting Mendelssohn’s elegance with Mahler’s emotional depth. Another highlight is Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion, performed in places deeply connected to the composer — Warsaw, Lusławice, and Dębica.

For those drawn to the experimental edge, the Alterfonie series offers a different rhythm — from Polski Piach’s blues reinterpretation of the cult animation Reksio to Stefan Wesołowski’s Song of the Night Mists, where classical instruments meet electronic soundscapes.

To feel Eufonie fully, let the program guide you — choose the concert, or a few, that resonate most with you. But whatever you choose, the festival itself is a rich experience worth being part of.

Listening is a form of connection

As Eufonie’s theme suggests, this year invites us to dive twice — into sound and into image — and to linger in the space between them. With outstanding artists from across Europe — soloists, orchestras, and choirs from Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Macedonia — the festival becomes more than a series of concerts.

It turns into a cultural mirror, reflecting how much the Central and Eastern European region shares: melodies that travel across borders, emotions that need no translation. Because listening itself becomes a bridge — a way of understanding without words.

... listening itself becomes a bridge — a way of understanding without words.

If you’re in Warsaw, or traveling there in November, let the city guide you into one of its concert halls. Moments like these, shared with your loved ones, family, or friends — shared emotions — stay with you long after the music ends, creating memories that feel like the afterglow of sound.

Dates & details

• What: 7th International Music Festival of Central and Eastern Europe — Eufonie
• When: 13 November – 7 December 2025
• Where: Warsaw, Kraków, Katowice, Gdańsk, Łódź, Opole, Olsztyn, Dębica, Lusławice, Bucharest

The article was created in partnership with Narodowe Centrum Kultury.