Performers

Singer, composer, and songwriter, Poland’s representative in the Grand Final of the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest (Kyiv 2017). Born into a musical family, she graduated in cello and piano from the Fryderyk Chopin General Education Music School in Bytom and in singing from the Jazz and Popular Music Faculty of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice. She performs songs from jazz and popular repertoire. She also applies the so-called white voice technique.

Jazz bass player, he graduated with honours from Adam Kowalewski’s double-bass class at the Institute of Jazz and Popular Music at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice (2013). He is much sought after as a session musician in Poland and Europe, as well as a member of such bands as Marek Pospieszalski Octet, Szymon Mika Trio, and most recently Hoshii – a band founded by Kuba Więcek.

Ever since its formation in 1990, Ensemble Musikfabrik has enjoyed the reputation of one of the leading ensembles specialising in most recent contemporary music. For many years it has performed sophisticated and innovative music, frequently composed on the initiative of Musikfabrik as the ensemble’s commissions. Its members are excellents soloists, and their performances are usually prepared in close collaboration with the composers. Every year Musikfabrik gives about 80 concerts in Germany and abroad during major European music festivals and their own series entitled ‘Musikfabrik in WDR’.

Pianist, chamber musician and accompanist, born in 1982 in Bydgoszcz. He graduated from Warsaw’s Chopin University of Music (piano with Andrzej Stefański and Krzysztof Jabłoński, chamber music with Barbara Halska) and from Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts (vocal accompaniment with David Lutz).

Founded in 1996, it is one of the oldest Polish ensembles specialising in contemporary music. The orchestra was conducted at first by Aleksander Lasoń. Under the artistic direction of Szymon Bywalec since 2006, it has gradually transformed from a group of enthusiastic students into a professional ensemble which can perform the most formidable scores.

Grace Newcombe – a member of Ensemble Peregrina

Percussionist, graduate of Warsaw’s Chopin University of Music (class of Stanisław Skoczyński), participant of many percussion masterclasses in Poland and Germany, and an Erasmus+ scholarship holder (studies at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Mannheim). He has premiered numerous solo, chamber, and symphonic works by such composers as, among others, Artur Słotwiński, Bartosz Kowalski, and Ignacy Zalewski. He also works on reconstructions of Baroque, Classical, and early Romantic performance practice. Niezgoda is a member of Ensemblage chamber ensemble for new music and the Opera Academy’s Baroque Orchestra.

Born in Kivertsi in Volhynia, he studied at Warsaw’s State Higher School of Music in 1954–1961. He won prizes in Polish and international vocal competitions in Katowice (1956), Moscow (1957), Warsaw (1958), Toulouse (1959), and others.