Catalogue

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.

Born 75 years ago, Wnuk-Nazarowa obtained her master’s degree from Krzysztof Penderecki’s class in 1974. Her professional life has been a long series of challenges and successes, and she is well-known for her achievements in the fields of education, management, and politics. She was, among others, the head of Cracow Philharmonic, the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) in Katowice, and (in 1997–1999) – Minister of Culture.

To say about Krzysztof Herdzin that he is a versatile musician and a titan of work is to say nothing. This pianist, composer, arranger, conductor and music producer also feels at home in jazz (he played in the bands of Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski and Zbigniew Namysłowski, he is a band leader himself), pop music (he collaborated with, among others, Anna Maria Jopek, Maryla Rodowicz and Edyta Geppert), contemporary music (for which he was nominated to Fryderyk award many times), film and theatre.

What if we ventured the theory that all that jazz flows out of the Vistula River? Kuba Stankiewicz, an excellent jazz pianist and composer, began his professional career in the mid-1980s, playing with Jan ‘Ptaszyn’ Wróblewski and Zbigniew Namysłowski.

One of Poland’s most compelling jazz pianists, Kuba Stankiewicz has shared the stage with, among others, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Artie Shaw, and Art Farmer. For many years he has explored the impact of pre-WWII film music on jazz, which has resulted in splendid releases of music by Victor Young, Bronisław Kaper, Henryk Wars, as well as their teacher Roman Statkowski. Stankiewicz’s variations on themes from Różycki’s works are the next stage of his journey in search for the sources of jazz.

“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.

“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.

From his debut album Outside Sources (2004), Canadian bassist-composer Michael Bates felt that even contemporary open jazz constrains him. Michael Bates’ arrangements OF Lutosławski’s works were premiered in a dazzling manner by the joint forces of Acrobat and Lutosławski Quartet during the New York edition of Jazztopad festival in June 2022. Several months later in Wrocław, the musicians met up again in order to record the music and thus preserve their fantastic adventure for the future generations.