A year to the date since the death of Krzysztof Penderecki, the composer's life and legacy have been remembered in a beautiful and creative new website, launched today by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

Called ‘Penderecki’s Garden’, it offers a virtual, interactive space in which visitors can explore the composer’s life through music, articles, interviews, videos, photographs and poetry, which all draw on the many ways his music was woven into the creative and cultural world of his time.

The virtual setting – a tranquil online garden, which invites visitors to virtually wander among plants and architectural structures – is a moving tribute to Penderecki’s second great passion, nurturing his garden in Lusławice, Poland. And just as a garden grows, so too will the site.

‘A garden is a space, and this is exactly how we treat this project,’ said Barbara Krzeska, Deputy Director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. ‘Not as a website, but as a place to meet Krzysztof Penderecki and those he inspired. It is a space filled with his creativity and passion. The visitors can discover the links between Penderecki's Dies irae and Picasso's Guernica, listen to a concert in the amphitheatre, and learn about the Lusławice garden's species of trees. In the future, they will also be able to “walk” the garden maze.’

And that amphitheatre setting will be inaugurated tonight, a year since Penderecki’s death, when the Adam Mickiewicz Institute will host a special concert in the composer's memory featuring the Atom String Quartet performing arrangements of Penderecki’s music, in addition to world premiere performances of new works by Max Richter and Hania Rani, specially commissioned for the occasion. The concert will be free to watch.

‘I am thrilled about the premiere of Penderecki’s Garden, a project devoted to the two greatest passions of my husband - music and nature,’ added the composer’s widow, Elżbieta Penderecka. ‘The initiative of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute will introduce international audiences to his world and its unique character, inspiring the next generation of creators.’

You can visit ‘Penderecki’s Garden’ here: pendereckisgarden.pl

Tonight's concert will take place here, at 7pm BST/8pm CET: pendereckisgarden.pl/en/the-amphitheatre