Catalogue

The workings of inspiration are truly inscrutable. Karol Szymanowski sought it in the Antiquity, the Orient, and in Polish folklore. The artists of to-day, though cast from a different mould, are in turn inspired by the oeuvre of Szymanowski. They take up anew what the giant of Polish music left off nearly a hundred years ago and use his works as a point of departure for more explorations, a journey into the unknown. This is certainly true of sax player, composer and producer Adam Pierończyk – a restless soul, an artist who has collaborated with, among others, Sam Rivers, Archie Shepp, Bobby McFerrin, Tomasz Stańko, and Avishai Cohen. The US website ‘All About Jazz’ hailed his virtuoso playi

“I’ve focused on chamber music in order to bring out as much colour in the violin itself and its changing sound as possible,” says virtuoso Adam Bałdych about his vision of Wieniawski’s music. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called Bałdych “technically the most accomplished violinist of our time”. Technical proficiency and thorough education (which includes an honours degree from Katowice’s Academy of Music and a scholarship to Berklee College of Music) do not stop Bałdych from taking an unorthodox approach to the time-honoured music of old masters.

A creative clash of such individualities is always a high-risk venture that might only seem fit for a one-time success. Contrary to expectations, collaboration between one of Poland’s most eminent 21st-century composers and one of the best contemporary writers continues to develop, producing ever more surprising results. The two artists chose the opera as the field for their joint experimentation. They approach this genre in all seriousness but without humility… Which brings us to the title of Nowak and Twardoch’s third work, “Pokora” (‘humility’ in Polish).

Drach’s element was the earth. With their next joint project, Aleksander Nowak and Szczepan Twardoch pay homage to water, though the true object of their artistic contemplation is the journey as a longing for change and a quest for meaning in life.

GREAT ENCOUNTERS are excellent performances of outstanding works, but also meeting points between great composers and performers. Music by Fryderyk Chopin, Henryk Wieniawski, Stanisław Moniuszko, Karol Szymanowski, and Ignacy Jan Paderewski represents the musical idiom of Polishness to which successive generations of artists and music-lovers have always referred.

GREAT ENCOUNTERS are excellent performances of outstanding works, but also meeting points between great composers and performers. Music by Fryderyk Chopin, Henryk Wieniawski, Stanisław Moniuszko, Karol Szymanowski, and Ignacy Jan Paderewski represents the musical idiom of Polishness to which successive generations of artists and music-lovers have always referred.

High Definition Quartet has proved itself in cross-genre explorations. It is not without reason that its leader and pianist Piotr Orzechowski has been nicknamed Pianohooligan. With roguish impudence he jumps across genre boundaries. In FOREFATHERS’ EVE he explores the rarely visited borderland between jazz or broadly understood improvised music and electronics, which some still view as ambient, while others greet it as homemade contemporary classical music.

A musical drama written for voices, harpsichord, strings, looper and dragon. The piece is a fascinating collision of the sensitivity of one of the most outstanding Polish composers of contemporary music and an exceptional writer, awarded and, above all, read in Poland and around the world.