Adam Mickiewicz Institute presents: Poland at jazzahead! 2023

The Adam Mickiewicz Institute is pleased to provide a presentation of Polish jazz music at jazzahead! 2023.

Please visit us at Poland’s stand 6B08 to learn more and meet our delegates, who are listed in this catalogue. Don’t forget to check the Polish showcase of jazzahead! 2023: an amazing Amalia Umeda Quartet !

Co- nanced by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland

A bout us

Adam Mickiewicz Institute

The Adam Mickiewicz Institute is a national cultural institution. Its mission is to build lasting interest in Polish culture globally. The Institute works with foreign partners and initiates international cultural exchange in accordance with Poland’s foreign policy. The Institute has implemented cultural projects on six continents, in 70 countries , including the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Israel, Germany, Turkey, the USA, Canada, Australia, Morocco, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, China, Japan, and Korea. The Institute has implemented tens of strategic programmes, and held events attended by an audience of over 60 million .

The Culture.pl website provides fresh information on the most exciting Polish cultural events around the globe. It is also the biggest and most comprehensive source of knowledge about Polish culture.

The Adam Mickiewicz Institute is governed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Adam Mickiewicz Institute team at jazzahead ! 2023

Don’t miss the Polish showcase

jazzahead ! 2023 Showcaseat European Jazz Meeting

27 April ( Thursday ) 19 : 30 – 20 : 00

Halle 7 – Stage 7.2

Amalia Umeda Quartet

Amalia Umeda violin/vocal, Franciszek Raczkowski piano

Michał Aftyka double bass, Michał Szeligowski drums

Main purpose of the band when creating music together is intuitive, collective improvisation and openness to new solutions – textural, temporal, and interpretative. All compositions performed by the quartet are based on a thrifty outline of ideas, allowing all four musicians to give these pieces a unique shape, character, and form during each performance. They explore new possibilities of interpretation depending on the current moment, the mood, the acoustics of the room, as well as the energy of the audience.

W www.amaliaumeda.com

Amalia Umeda Quartet is the synthesis of four musical personalities and the diversity of reactions between them. For me every concert is a process of meditation – we follow paths which are made at the right moment. These paths connect into one big story of various emotional states, authenticity and rawness.

Amalia Umeda

Management & Booking: Judyth BABIN

T

+33 786 667 657

judyth@manag-art.com

www.manag-art.com

M eet the Polish delegates at jazzahead! 2023

Sebastian Jozwiak

Manager of EABS, Błoto and Zima Stulecia bands alongside with the Latarnik solo project. Co-founder and co-owner of the Astigmatic Records label, which has been operating on the international market continuously since 2016.

As an executive (and sometimes as „an ideologist”) he has produced more than dozen of albums by jazz-related bands and projects from Poland, Europe and Asia.

Elma Kais vel ELMA

Improvising vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, music therapist. She studied both jazz and classical music, her doctorate in music psychology focused on the psychological aspects of playing jazz and improvising. Widely recognized for her exploration of new means of expression for the human voice as an instrument in jazz vocal improvisation, ELMA released three albums: „Hic Et Nunc”, „Ad Rem” and „Licentia Poetica”, which gained her international acclaim.

+48 508 390 211 elma@elmakais.com

www.elmakais.com

Jakub Krzeszowski

Founder and President of the Board of the JAZZ PO POLSKU Foundation. Plans and carries out image campaigns from the field of culture marketing. Has been working in the music branch for a while, first as journalist, now as promoter.

JAZZ PO POLSKU Foundation, presents a wide spectrum of Polish musicians from the jazz scene. It aims at refreshing the image of jazz music on the international arena through presenting the most prospective bands from the Polish music scene. It also helps in establishing cultural cooperation and brings together artists from many countries. Since 2012, the label has already organized more than 300 events for 100 Polish artists abroad, mainly in Asia. Also international bands have been touring in Poland as part of a bilateral cooperation.

Marcin Piechowiak

Co-founder and co-owner of Astigmatic Records, an independent label focused on vinyl releases (but also present on CD market). Since 2016 he puts out fresh and distinctive music drawing on jazz, electronic, hip-hop and much more.

Astigmatic Records does not define genres but focuses on uniqueness and high artistic quality with each release. It is looking into the future while keeping true to its roots, gathering artists from Poland, Europe and even distant Pakistan. The company’s catalog also includes archival recordings of artists such as Henryk Debich and Tomasz Stańko.

Asia Pieczykolan

Managing editor of “Jazz Forum” Magazine, jazz promoter, executive producer, Jazz Forum Machine band manager. The creator, director and producer of Jazz Forum Showcase powered by Szczecin Jazz, which was held in 2019, one of the most important endeavors promoting Polish jazz internationally. In 2017 she initiated, and produced annually, a platform for jazz musicians to perform at Pol’and’Rock Festival (previously called “Woodstock”), one of the biggest summer music festivals in Europe. A patron and mentor for many musicians.

www.jazzforum.com.pl

Kasia Pietrzko

Polish pianist, composer, and arranger based in Warsaw. Following Kasia Pietrzko’s striking debut albums with her trio, the pianist quickly became not only the “talk of the town”, but also garnered great interest around Europe. 2018 saw her perform with Tomasz Stańko, which was to be first of a series of concerts - series that never happened due to trupeter’s death.

She went on to play with her trio around Europe, stopping at the NDR studio in Hamburg, Bimhuis and many more. This year Kasia presents third album “Fragile Ego” released by Warner Music in the famous Polish Jazz series. On “Fragile Ego” the leader’s individual voice emerges ever more strongly. Inspired by her observations of people, their relations, differences of opinion and systems of values, she wrote a program that is filled with profound hope: for mutual sensitivity to fellow humans, truth, liberation from social pressures and from the fear of solitude; for a world that is free from hatred, envy, and arbitrary pigeonholing. On her new album the leader is accompanied as usual by Andrzej Święs and Piotr Budniak.

Katarzyna Werner

Worked as Leszek Możdżer’s tour manager, since January 2012 under the name of her agency Twelve Melodies (as Adam Bałdych’s manager till 2020). Now working with O.N.E., Marek Napiórkowski, Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity, and Dima Orsho. She was the first Polish agent chosen to be part of the Footprints Europe project. Apart from the jazz world, Katarzyna Werner is an ACFEA representative in Poland. Addicted to traveling and wanderlust.

+48 536 266 316

k.werner@twelvemelodies.pl

www.twelvemelodies.pl

Slawomir Wrzask

Marcin Wasilewski Trio manager, culture animator, promoter. Co-producer of concerts and tours of Marcin Wasilewski and the Trio. Producer of the ECM50 Warsaw Festival 2019 –50th anniversary celebrations of the ECM Records in Warsaw – the event which has its continuation every year in November as the ECM Warsaw Festival. For years Slawomir has also been running his own special event agency: The Golden Mine.

Marcin Wasilewski Trio is the undisputed jazz stars in Poland, ambassadors of Polish jazz abroad, appreciated by jazz fans and respected by international critics as one of the most outstanding and unique jazz formations of its generation. Members of the band (Pianist and composer Marcin Wasilewski, bassist

Sławomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michał Miskiewicz) are also well known to jazz fans around the world for 20 years of recording and touring with trumpeter Tomasz Stańko in his quartet. Promoting trio’s recent “En attendant” album, musicians prepare to record their 8th ECM album and new interesting projects for the next season, in 2024-25 this excellent Trio will be celebrating 30 years together.

Polish delegates at jazzahead!

:

Tomasz Stanko Quintet WOODEN MUSIC I

play

Adam Mickiewicz Institute presents

It would appear that Polish jazz is a well-known subject through and through. Dozens of outstanding albums, biographies of the masters, hundreds of journal articles. As it turns out, it is still possible to find music that has been waiting for years to be discovered.

In 2022, on the 80th birthday of Tomasz Stańko, Adam Mickiewicz Institute and Astigmatic Records presented the first part of „Wooden Music”, a conceptual project created by the maestro and his legendary quintet, which has been stored in the archives of Radio Bremen for 50 years.

Wooden music is all about total improvisation

Bronisław Suchanek

Tomasz Stańko (1942-2022) was the European Miles Davis. A Pole who could say more with one breath than any other jazz trumpeter in their entire life

Christoph Benkeser

TOMASZ STAŃKO QUINTET:

Tomasz Stańko trumpet

Zbigniew Seifert violin

Janusz Muniak tenor saxophone, flute, percussion

Bronisław Suchanek double bass

Janusz Stefański drums, flexatone

Recorded by Radio Bremen at Lila Eule, Bremen on 15 July, 1972

Available on Astigmatic Records vinyls, CDs and all streaming platforms.

Tomasz Stańko Quintet

photo by Paweł Karpiński by courtesy of Astigmatic Records

the virtual photo exhibition by Jaroslaw Wierzbicki

I photographed concerts of Tomasz Stańko’s bands for the last few years of his life, gradually gaining my confidence that I was able to capture the essence of his artistry and his way of being. I was delighted with his music, but I always remembered that he was a man who - like myself - took incredibly difficult lessons from life. And he won!

The photos from which I composed the „Immortal Tomasz Stanko” exhibition come from the short but memorableperformanceattheZAIKS100thAnniversary Gala at the Wielki Theater in Warsaw (March 19, 2018), Warsaw concerts at 12on14 Club (October 22, 2016) and Roma Theater (November 13, 2017) and the very last one he ever played - at the Alchemia Club in Krakow (February 14, 2018).

This is my real farewell to Tomasz.

Jarosław Wierzbicki

Artist-photographer; author of cover and booklet photos used by recording artists from Poland and abroad, winner of the Jazz World Photo and MK Jazz Foto competitions, a regular collaborator of „Jazz Forum” and „JazzPress” magazines.

visit gallery

Tribute to Tomasz Stańko

1970

Tomasz Stańko debuts as a leader and pays a tribute to his mentor: Krzysztof Komeda

1974

The affirmation of total openness in music: free jazz at its highest

1981

Sudden turn into Jazz mainstream: Stańko goes groove!

2021

Fully organic musical dish made of funk, fusion, punk, rock’n’roll and improvisation

2022

One of the most creative and daring artists of contemporary polish jazz scene

Polish jazz series

2023

First female pianist and leader in Polish Jazz series! Impressionism and powerful expression

Co- nanced by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland