Albumy

Zygmunt Krauze’s “Contexts” is a monographic album featuring the work of this distinguished Polish composer, which broadly reflects the rich and diverse panorama of 20th- and 21st-century chamber music. It features works from several periods of Krauze’s work – from his early work, reflecting the style of French modernism, to his most recent works, written in 2022-2023. The album was released by DUX. The performers are Spółdzielnia Muzyczna Contemporary Ensemble  and Zygmunt Krauze, as soloist on the piano. The recordings were made in the concert hall of the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź, and were recorded by Krzysztof Sztekmiler.

This is a CD document of the first edition of our flagship project, in which we annually invite composers to engage in genuine, close, and intense collaboration. The album records the first of two concerts in 2022, where we presented the fruits of this vibrant collaboration—with Alex Vaughan (Australia), Fabio Machiavelli (Italy), Rachel C. Walker (United States), Agata Zemla (Poland), Jug Marković (Serbia), and Hristina Šušak (also from Serbia). We further expanded the collaborative dimension of the project by creating an original physical object together with Krakow’s Blürbstudio and Drukarnia Kolory.

A souvenir from the mid-pandemic edition of the Sacrum Profanum festival. Piotr Peszat drew from a range of then-current or everlasting contexts. He adopted the mechanics of Netflix’s Bandersnatch to specifically—quasi-autobiographically—address current social and cultural issues, as well as the herritage of Polish composition. By voting, the audience influenced the course of events; and thanks to the (double) disc, one can imagine all possible combinations and consequences.

Spółdzielnia’s first fully independent album. It features compositions that shaped the ensemble’s identity and hardened our musical spirit. The ensemble balances one foot in 20th-century classics and the other in sonic and performance experiments. Initiated by the swing of Kagels axe, the narrative leads through the virtuosity of Franco Donatoni, the hyper-energy of Brigitta Muntendorf, the tradition-longing music of Paweł Szymański, and the electronic syntheses of Piotr Peszat, all the way to the wild dance of cans and bells in Ricardo Eizirik’s piece. New music here strives for a broad horizon—much like Spółdzielnia itself.

The project is co-financed by the City of Kraków—the Krakow Creative Scholarship.

A patriotic project. In 2018, to commemorate the centenary of Polish independence, PWM edition released a retrospective musical calendar in the form of a thirty-six-disc box. We received the 2011 card, which featured Jagoda Szmytka’s “Electrified Memories of Bloody Cherries.” Our colleague, Mateusz Loska of the Hashtag Ensemble, joined us on double bass. Kudos to our drummer, Alek, for wandering Krakow’s scrapyards in search of the perfect-sounding anvils and grills.

Another patriotic project. Artur Zagajewski, composer of the music for the film Opera about Poland, was very supportive from the beginning, and his Mechanofaktura became an important part of our repertoire. For the opera itself, the four members of Spółdzielnia joined forces with accordionist Eneasz Kubit, clarinetist Michał Górczyński, guitarist Wojtek Błażejczyk, and conductor Maciej Koczur. Piotr Stasik’s film, with Artur’s music, is an authentic study of Polishness, in which we were tasked, among other things, with playing muffled music boxes.

The recording of Shivers on Speed, which appears on the album, comes from the documentation of one of our most important concerts. A cooperative in the salons, that is, on the stage of the National Philharmonic in Warsaw. Shivers itself is a composition very close to us: its performance built us as a group. The band’s friend Michał Górczyński played the powerful clarinet part.

In 2017, Krzysztof Pietraszewski came up with the idea of ​​​​merging contemporary music with so-called alternative music: rock, ambient, electronica, metal. We approached these diverse trends with a somewhat hesitant approach, carefully discovering the surroundings—and it turned out the road wasn’t far at all. That’s how the “Post Indie Classical” concert at Sacrum Profanum came about, several tracks from which found a second life on post-festival album tracklists. Aidan wrote a good minimal piece that we felt right at home with.