Tauron Life Festival Oświęcim (formerly: Life Festival Oświęcim) is a unique initiative compared to other music events in Poland. The idea of the festival is to build peaceful relations across cultural and national boundaries and to fight against racism and anti-Semitism, and the tools are art in its various forms – from music, through theatre and cinema, to graphic design.
The originator and artistic director of TLFO is Darek Maciborek. The music journalist for Radio RMF FM, born and still living in Oświęcim, decided to “disenchant” the town of 40,000 inhabitants, which in the minds of many people functions only in connection with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.
The main stars of the festival’s editions to date have been the Scorpions, Queen & Adam Lambert, Elton John, Manu Chao, Eric Clapton, Soundgarden, Sting, Peter Gabriel and James Blunt.
During the eight editions of TLFO to date, cultural and stylistic diversity has been introduced by, among others, the American reggae singer of Jewish origin Matisyahu, Kozak System from Ukraine, Jamaram from Germany, Ninet Tayeb from Israel, the French group Kana, the Belgian Antwerp Gipsy-Ska Orkestra, the Jamaican Twinkle Brothers or the American-Israeli Balkan Beat Box. The top of the Polish music scene also appeared on stage, including Kroke with Anna Maria Jopek, Hey, Kasia Kowalska, Brodka, Edyta Bartosiewicz, Kayah, LemOn, Kortez, Dawid Podsiadło, Luxtorpeda, Perfect, Voo Voo, Varius Manx, T.Love, Blue Cafe and Dżem.
Krystyna Janda performed three times on the theatrical stage of TLFO (with the monodramas “White Blouse” and “Shirley Valentine” and in the play “Maria Callas. Master Class’), twice by Piotr Fronczewski (in ‘Rita’s Education’ and ‘Sunny Boys’, together with Krzysztof Kowalewski), and in ‘Klub Hipochondryk’ and ‘Zamach na MoCarta’, among others, Zbigniew Zamachowski and Wojciech Malajkat took part.
A strong highlight of TLFO is the classical music concert with the participation of distinguished guests – these included the brilliant Roma violinist Dalibor Karvay, soloists Beate Ritter and Alexander Zbigniew Pinderak of the Vienna State Opera, the famous composer, conductor and instrumentalist Krzesimir Debski and the young piano virtuoso Pianohooligan. We could also watch the performance “The musical biography of Frank Sinatra” performed by the Beethoven Academy Orchestra, a jazz ensemble, vocalists and dancers.
Specially for the festival, the murals, permanently adorning the urban landscape of Oświęcim, were designed by eminent graphic artists: Edward Dwurnik, Andrzej Pągowski, Rafał Olbiński, Academy Award winner Tomasz Bagiński and Dachau-born Heiko Klohn.
Since 2013, the festival programme has been enriched by sports events, including a street run with Polish show business stars, with multiple Olympic champion Robert Korzeniowski as ambassador. In 2015, an attempt was made to break the Guinness World Record for the largest number of people taking part in Nordic walking at the same time.
In 2017, for the first time in the history of TLFO, there was a screening of films referring to the peaceful idea of the festival, combined with a concert in the cinema hall – the star of the evening under the motto ‘Stop: Freedom” was performed by Peter J. Birch.
A key item on the TLFO programme is educational activities. Between 2010 and 2017, UNICEF, the Polish Humanitarian Action, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and Amnesty International, among others, took part in preparing workshops, exhibitions, discussion panels and special festival stands.