Before I present the origin of the Krzyżowa-Music Festival, I would like to draw a short historical introduction.

Freya and Helmuth James von Moltke met in 1929 among a group of people concentrated around Eugen and Hermann Schwarzwald in Vienna. Apart from many other relationships that left their mark on their lives, they also made a friendship with the pianist Rudolf Serkin. In 1951, Rudolf Serkin, together with other European musicians who emigrated to the Vermont (state of the United States), established the Marlboro Music Chamber Music Festival. He led the festival for several decades, and the significance of the festival spread far beyond the borders of United States. It was in Vermont that he met again Freya von Moltke, who lived in the neighborhood, as well as her children and grandchildren. It was then that the representatives of three generations of the von Moltke family began to get involved in the Marlboro Festival. In this family context, me and my wife Dorothy also loved the Marlboro Music Festival.

Our artistic director, Viviane Hagner, also experienced formative summer periods there as an artistic participant of Marlboro Music. As artistic director of the Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern I was allowed to accompany her for many years. I also succeeded in recruiting her as curator for the Freya von Moltke Foundation. When she got to know Krzyżowa/Kreisau, she had an idea: "This unique place could become a European Marlboro". She shared this idea with the managing director of Freya von Moltke Foundation - Agnieszka von Zanthier, who told me about it. Marlboro Music, the Serkin family and their principle of meeting, living together and exchanging ideas across generations and the artistic intentions by experienced and aspiring musicians, the "Seniors" and "Juniors", she had experienced as a regular Marlboro participant. In 2013 we talked about the historical connections between these two distant, rural places on both sides of the Atlantic at the Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and we decided to take the risk of organizing the Festival Krzyżowa-Music "Music from Kreisau. For Europe" and return the idea from exile back to home Europe.

Two years later, we were ready. Viviane Hagner created around her a faculty consisting of 40 significant, well-known contemporary musicians, including many "veterans" of Marlboro Festival, and musicians of her generation performing all over the world. From among this group, she invites "seniors" to the next editions of the festival. In addition, they also advise her as a jury on the selection of individual "juniors". So it all started in 2015, when our well selected "juniors" - with their own feistiness  – met for the first time with experienced masters.

On 1 September, when at the end of our fifth season the sounds of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony" will resound, we will be able to say that in the past five years 145 extraordinary musicians have taken part in the festival. They will then spend 5,000 nights in Krzyżowa and 3,333 hours of practice in order to present 186 works to a total audience of 15,000 listeners during the 40 summer concerts and 26 concerts during the autumn tour. This will also mean that during the 10 symposiums they will discuss issues related to the role of artists in society and learn about the history of Krzyżowa. In order to make all this possible, more than 200 - mainly private - people and organizations were financially involved in the festival. 41 people had to roll up their sleeves and get down to work - so that everything could be organized and the musicians could present their music at the highest level. However, "Krzyzowonians", as these musicians describe themselves today, remembering the wonderful time they spent together at the Krzyżowa-Music festivals, feel like ambassadors of Krzyżowa and its efforts to unite nations all over the world.

Matthias von Hülsen - General Director of the Krzyżowa-Music Festival