Published: 24 November, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR

This country’s first festival of Polish contemporary jazz and experimental music runs for three days early next month at three north London venues: The Forge, Camden Town, and The Vortex and Servant Jazz Quarters, both in Dalston.

The festival has the ambitious aims of getting like-minded Polish and British musicians together, thereby creating a platform for long-lasting collaboration.

Opening the festival at The Vortex on Monday December 5 is young Polish composer/alto sax player Maciej Obara and his quartet which has received many enthusiastic reviews.

Obara himself is said to be “musically unruly and uncontrollable,” his music comprising rebellious energy and musical insubordination.

A second set involves the Arszyn/Duda duo improvising on electronics and saxes, their music once described as “a rolling cacophony of sound and tribal drums”.

Next up on December 6 at The Forge will be pianist Marcin Masecki, deconstructing a selection of Scarlatti’s unique and beautiful keyboard sonatas.

As an improviser, Masecki finds the sonatas to  be “incredibly fertile ground for all kinds of creative alterations”.

On December 7 at Servant Jazz Quarters, Piotr Kurek will perform solo on electric accordion and modular synthesizer.

He’s been one of the pioneering forces in Polish experimental music since the late 1990s.

The festival is being produced by Deconstruction  Project, an organisation promoting Polish contemporary culture in this country. 

It gets financial support from the National Lottery through the Arts Council and from the Polish Cultural Centre in London.