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Adam Furmański
Furmański was born in 1883 in Korszenin, in the Kiev region, and was killed in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943.
His father was Kapellmeister of Count Balaszow's court orchestra. Furmański and his brothers played there, where he gained a reputation as a virtuoso cornettist.
The fate of the young musician was undoubtedly influenced by Emil Młynarski, the outstanding Polish conductor, who later worked at the Warsaw Opera. Having heard him play at a concert in Kiev, Młynarski proposed that Furmański take part in a competition for young musicians being organized in Warsaw by Baron Leopold Kronenberg. The competition was a great success for the young cornettist. Kronenberg, fascinated with his playing, granted him a stipend, an apartment in his palace, and sponsored his studies at the Warsaw conservatory. Furmański graduated in a class of wind instruments, specializing in cornet and conducting, which he studied under the direction of Emil Młynarski. He graduated from the conservatory with honors.
Furmański began working in the newly founded Warsaw Philharmonic. His activities did not stop there, however, for his was convinced that society's need for good music was much greater than the Philharmonic could provide. Bursting with initiative, he founded his own itinerant symphonic orchestra, whose repertoire included both classical and popular works. His orchestra gave performances in Ciechocinek, Otwock, Zakopane and Łódź. In Warsaw, it performed in the Swiss Valley (Dolina Szwajczarska, a small park in an elegant area of downtown Warsaw), attracting crowds of music lovers. He also organized small performing ensembles, competitions for children and charity events.
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During the Second World War, Furmański was in the Warsaw ghetto along with other leading musicians from the Philharmonic, Radio and Opera. Even in the ghetto, he did not stop his activities: he founded the Jewish Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted during concerts given at the Institute of Judaic Studies on Tłomackie Street (currently the headquarters of the Jewish Historical Institute). He also organized an ensemble comprised of street performers, providing employment for starving musicians in the ghetto. Ringelblum wrote: "At the corner of Pańska and Żelazna, a Jewish orchestra meets every Sunday at three and plays at the barbed wire fence dividing the ghetto from the rest of the city. Hundreds and hundreds of Aryans listen to that music, leaving every half hour to make way for others - Poles who come to listen to forbidden music. Money is collected from those audiences... by a Polish policeman, who then gives it to the orchestra. This lasts all afternoon, until the curfew..."
Furmański was very well respected and popular in the ghetto; the 35th anniversary of his artistic career was even celebrated there. The details of his death are not known. He probably died in Treblinka in 1943. (asw)
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