Performers

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).

Established in 1996, Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej (OMN) is the oldest Polish ensemble specialising in contemporary music performance, with intense activity now spanning over 20 years. Working first under the direction of the ensemble’s founder Aleksander Lasoń, and since 2006 under Artistic Director Szymon Bywalec, the OMN has gradually morphed from a group of enthusiastic students into a professional ensemble able to tackle the most complex scores.

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.

Guitarist and educator, prize winner in national and international guitar competitions. He graduated with honours from Alina Gruszka’s guitar class at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice. He has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in Poland and abroad, performing, among others, with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) in Katowice, the Silesian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of the Lublin, Częstochowa, and Olsztyn (Warmia and Mazury) Philharmonics.

Double-bass and bass-guitar player, moving freely between the worlds of classical, jazz, and electronic music. Olejnik teaches classes at the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław as well as conducting numerous music courses and workshops. He is also the founder and artistic director of Bass&Beat Festival, focussing on bass and beat as the foundations of contemporary music as well as promotion of young artists and new means of expression.