Konstanty Regamey Jr's fields of activity

Regamey was employed at the University of Lausanne in April 1945 and at the University of Fribourg as an associate professor of general linguistics in 1946; in Lausanne, he was first a lecturer of Russian and oriental languages, from 1949 he lectured on Slavic and oriental languages ​​and civilization, from 1957 full professor. He visited Krakow in March 1947 and was present at the premiere of the orchestra version of Persian Songs. Without abandoning his compositional activities (String Quartet, Variations and Theme), Konstanty Regamey devoted himself to research work in the field of oriental philology and Sanskrit, in 1949–50 he gave lectures in India and Egypt, and he was a delegate to the 22nd International Congress of Orientalists in Istanbul. He became an editor of “Feuilles Musicales” with P. Meylan in 1954–62; he was a member of Société Linguistique in Paris. At the Festival in Donaueschingen in 1955, there was a premiere of Five Studies, one of his most appreciated compositions due to the original tone and vocal virtuosity. He was one of the initiators of the UNESCO project on the Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values in 1956; he visited New Delhi, where he met with Dalai Lama. He started working on the opera Don Robott in 1959 but did not complete it. He made a concert tour as a pianist with the violinist Anna-Maria Gründer in 1962 in the USSR. In Moscow, he met with Svetlana Constantinovna Regamey, the previously unknown daughter of his father from his second marriage, thus his half-sister, who was an architect and later visited him in Lausanne. After returning, he composed Five Poems of Jean Tardieu for choir a capella, considered by critics to be close to the aesthetics of W. Lutosławski, which had their premiere at the International Festival of Contemporary Music “Warsaw Autumn” in 1964 and brought him spectacular success. He was the chairman of the Association des Musiciens Suisses in 1963–68, the Swiss department of ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music), and in 1964 he created the Swiss Music Council and became its chairman. He had a close relationship with P. Sacher, who conducted many performances of his compositions. He visited Poland again in 1966 as a guest of the “Warsaw Autumn” Festival on the occasion of the premiere of his Autographe. In 1973, he composed the second opera Mio, mein Mio, commissioned by the Hamburg Opera. He was a member of the ISCM presidium in 1969–1973. He wrote a cantata Alphain 1970 and a double concerto Lila in 1976, dedicated to P. Sacher. He finished his work at the universities in Freiburg and Lausanne and retired in 1977; in the same year, he visited Baranów where his 70th birthday was celebrated by the Polish Music Society. In September 1978, he was nearly completely paralysed and had to stay in a clinic in Lausanne. He continued working on the cantata Visions by dictating it to composer J. Balissat. Regamey, although in a wheelchair, took part in the festive premiere of Visions at the Lausanne cathedral on Good Friday on 13 April 1979. It was his last great artistic success. On 19 May 1983, a bust of the composer was unveiled at the university in Lausanne. Regamey’s wife died in Lausanne on 22 November 1991, and the composer’s archives were handed over to Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire. In 1987 in Warsaw, a PCU symposium devoted to his work took place. Thanks to the initiative of the board of the Kraków branch of the Polish Composers’ Union and Pro Helvetia in the spring of 1993, many concerts were organised in Poland to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Regamey’s death; in the spring of 1995 also in Kyiv, Lviv and Drohobych. In 1994, Barbara Halska, a sturdy performer of his music, established the Ensemble Regamey, which performed Quintetduring the 6th  International Festival of Krakow Composers (in the presence of H.M. Górecki). In 2002, to celebrate the 20th  anniversary of the composer’s death, the first Polish performance of his Incantation Symphony took place. As part of the International Festival of Krakow Composers in 2004, a concert of Regamey’s compositions took place, and on the centenary of the composer’s birth, concerts and the International Musicological Conference “The Phenomenon of Konstanty Regamey’s Personality” with the participants from Switzerland and Ukraine. The exhibition “Konstanty Regamey. Polistylist” was opened at the University Library in Warsaw. To commemorate the centenary of Regamey’s birth, the Polish premieres of the cantata Visions took place at the festival in Kraków, as well as four performances of it in Ukraine (patron Pro Helvetia). Since 2014, the Musica Iagellonica publishing house, edited by J. Stankiewicz, has been publishing Regamey’s chamber works (Youthful Songs, Persian Songs in French and Polish versions, and Youthful Pieces for Piano, 2023).

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