Performers
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.
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.
An outstanding Polish double-bass player, whose talent was recognised by Jan ‘Ptaszyn’ Wróblewski during the Jazz Juniors 1983 festival in Cracow. Over the following five years he performed regularly in Poland and abroad with the bands of ‘Ptaszyn’ Wróblewski, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Tomasz Szukalski, Henryk Majewski, Wojciech Karolak, and Andrzej Jagodziński.
