Sacrum Profanum 2025

A festival that ‘profanes’ the classical, the traditional and the conservative, and ‘sacralises’ the experimental, the avant-garde and the curiosity. The international project, organised since 2003 by the Krakow Festival Office, gained the status of one of Europe’s most interesting music events. It presents cutting-edge music, aiming to blur the boundaries between contemporary music, often regarded as difficult and incomprehensible, and the achievements of the ambitious entertainment and experimental scene. In recent years, the Sacrum Profanum’s mission also became to integrate the contemporary music community (e.g. through cooperation with Polish composers and ensembles or orchestras, such as Spółdzielnia Muzyczna and Sinfonietta Cracovia).

Stylistically, the Sacrum Profanum programme is made up of an alchemical mix of three strands: from 20th-century contemporary music to avant-garde and indie classical. In addition to more or less typical concerts – increasingly co-created not only by the artists but also by the audience – its capacious formula also includes opera, exhibitions and audio art installations, as well as meetings, discussions and workshops complementing the main themes.

Sacrum Profanum is also known for its boldness in the approach to the form of the events. In earlier years, the audience enjoyed, inter alia, unprecedented concerts in the factory halls of the ArcelorMittal Poland steelworks. The festival doesn’t shy away from post-industrial venues either (Oskar Schindler’s Factory, Museum of Engineering and Technology), but is equally at home at concerts organised in a private flat or in the formula of a club ‘house party’ with the audience gathered casually around a piano. This approach (also understood literally) between artists and listeners underlines the way of thinking about contemporary music presented at the festival: instead of emphasising the experimental aspect, discomfort and the widely understood ‘strangeness’, the organisers focus on openness, the chance to experience something new and the opportunity to listen to music in a tolerant group, with attention, without haste.

Taking place in 2025, the 23rd edition of the festival (6–11 November) focuses on improvisation, intuition, interaction and inspiration, with a programme featuring proposals that go beyond simple concerts. The audience will experience music in dialogue with theatre, performance, literature, visual arts and public space (site-specific projects), including the March of Independent Music around the Main Market Square, Kraków’s most important meeting place, as well as a piece performed at dawn on the Krakus Mound.