First of all - there are two CDs released that I was working on: Perpetual Motion by Amine and Hamza M'Raihi and Concept Art Orchestra Live in Prague.
Perpetual Motion is a lovechild of M'Raihis' great oud kanun and composing skills and my weird taste in writing for a string quartet. While arranging i was unaware that there aren't many (if any) examples of superimposing an active quartet over a decent arabic-rooted smoking-hot virtuosos. There are signs that it spoke to some people to an extent that the recording is nominated to some prestigious prizes and fares well in the world music charts.
The Concept Art Orchestra CD was released in Czech Republic by the Czech Radio, and it was a lot of fun to record, because it was a live concert in a great place: Jazz Dock is literally floating on the water in Prague. The second aspect of fun is that the recording features my composition that deals with big band overtones. That might have been the loudest composition i had pleasure to perform!

Chord Nation suite for a jazz orchestra with string quartet and electronics commissioned by Wrocław Philharmonic and Jazztopad Festival is being recorded - it premiered in november in Wrocław, and now we're in the middle of mixing it after an extensive recording session in Polish Radio. As soon as i will have a little bit of free time i will link some photos, reviews and video from the recording session. It may deserve its own page, eventually.
This is a great place to thank all the people involved in the process, and there were so many that it would be somewhat embarassing to omit somebody (what i fear).
Big thank You to
Witold Kołodziejczyk, Aga Kiepuszewska, Mateusz Pliniewicz, Gosia Warszawska, Błażej Domański, Karolina Skrzyńska, Janek Pawlak, Tomasz Tamborski, Jacek Dyrda, Piotr Damasiewicz, Piotr Turkiewicz, Adrian Podgórny, Ewelina Serafin, Benny Brown, Erwin żebro, Oskar Torök, štepanka Balcárova, Marcin Wołowiec, Mateusz Mendyka, Mateusz łysoń, Paweł Niewiadomski, Szymon Kamykowski, Dawid Główczewski, Marek Pospieszalski, Przemysław Florczak, Mariusz Pędziałek, Grzegorz Grzeszczyk, Maciej Szczyciński, Michał Bryndal, Piotr Wronka, VIP Catering, Katering Katowice, Polskie Radio Katowice, Academy of Music in Katowice and many more.

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People You need to check out; Reut Rivka Shabi, Afrika Mikue Bibang Makina.

Hey, Czech concerts with the Concept Art Orchestra are over - the news are that Czech State Radio recorded our concert in Jazz Dock and they will release it this fall on a CD, so more raw energy big-band things pile up on the end of the year than expected.

I just got back home from a triple concert i had a pleasure to participate in - apart from Bartek Pieszka Quartet on the Klub 22 stage in Tarnowskie Góry You could have heard Krzysztof Kobyliński project and Johnny Freelance Experience - both multicultural and international endeavours that really blew my mind, and featured great vocals of the ladies mentioned on the top of this post.

In other news, my other cooperative endeavour - a piano and string quartet extension to Amine & Hamza's great tunisian music is approaching Switzerland this week - czech it out in the concerts section!

Also, the November the 20th concert of my 27 piece band is coming along nicely, expect a dedicated page just for this one.

I am to make some fresh arrangements for Amine & Hamza as we will feature a great flute player in Switzerland - so I need to stop writing this post and focus on the unfinished work!

It seems that there is a rule on composing - once You start to write for bigger ensembles they are only getting bigger and bigger. I wasn't aware of that rule when I wrote a big band suite last year, and more recently - a piece for a symphonic orchestra.
Now i'm officialy starting to work on the second big band suite - this time augmented with real time audio manipulation and some symphonic instruments as well - like oboe, bass clarinet flutes and strings for a good measure.
The artistic director of Jazztopad festival has been very kind to commission this brand new piece - and as You can reckon it will be premiered on this year's edition of Jazztopad - namely on 20th of november in the wroclaw philharmonic hall.
From the smaller department - my arrangements of tunisian music composed and played by Amine and Hamza M'Raihi - string quartet, piano oud and kanun - will be played in Kraków - my hometown - shortly after being showcased at the opening night of Jazz a Carthage festival. There will be a dvd coming, as well as european cd premiere.
In the meantime i'm also preparing something for a big-band concert in Prague recorded by the Czech radio. In both bigbands expect the uncanny leadership of Ed Partyka, what in my opinion settles any debate on the awesomeness of the sound of the band. Now only the notes to be written are the mystery part, but i'll try to take care of this.

It's 5 AM and today I finished working on parts for the 25 piece band - Composer's Ensemble. It's time to play something to reset myself and concentrate on next assignments.

Forest of gadgets  by  Nikola Kołodziejczyk

I am considering playing (and recording) musical sketches on a daily basis. This could be a nice material for a blog that could easily be turned into a release of some kind. Taking a half an hour to just play some random ideas and sticking to the virtual deadline of one sketch per day would be a good start. I need to find a way to stop the internet worms from indexing the mp3's behind the flash player so I can somehow manage the congestion of the presented material. Any ideas?
If I figure out a way out of this situation I would be more eager to post such doodles as this one above, and generally be more productive I suppose.

I need to get up at 10 so I need to catch some sleep.

Update: changed the player to the soundcloud widget. Let's see if it's playing nice with me.

I have to admit - arranging a trip from Katowice, Poland to Koln in Germany is easier and cheaper than driving to Lublin, Poland from the same spot. Cheap flights are EU's PR ace.
The bottom line is that I will be in the whereabouts of Koln and Maastricht from 10th to 17th of January, and I will make further updates with concert dates and this kind of things. You hear? 170zl for a round trip to Koln? 42 euro? This is insane.

Also I'd like to note, that prof. Ed Partyka is successful at keeping me busy, proof of which will be an event in February - 26th of February to be exact. A hand-crafted, tailored-to-our-needs band - Composer's Ensemble - made to streamline and refine our symphonic workflow will give one concert in the Concert Hall of the Academy of Music in Katowice. I'm trying to write some weird notes for this one, so please, come and check them out! Face-palms are not prohibited. I'll try to write more about the lineup in the project section that badly needs an update.
Featured composers will be (among others) Vit Kristian, Stepanka Balcarova and Lubos Soukup

YouTube has been spoiled with videos from Michał Bryndal Master's Recital.
Michał, Maciej Szczyciński and I studied jazz on Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, and formed Stryjo - trio.
Michał did the video and Stryjo did the music.

More videos on Youtube!
More about Stryjo in the Projects section.
Stryjo will be releasing a CD soon!

Related event: The Stryjo Recordings

There is plenty of things that happened since my last update.
My suite for an extended big band - Extreme Conditions - had it's premiere during my master's recital, we played it on 3 concerts in Austria maliciously using the kindness of the Graz Music Academy's own Jazz Institute. This is the moment when everybody should bow to Ed Partyka for making it happen, in very much every aspect.
Second thing that happened is a suprise project! It was a suprise to me, because I agreed to make an hour of string quartet arrangements for Amine & Hamza - tunisian oud and kanun virtuosos. The suprise part was the timeframe - i had to basically make everything in two weeks, so the players get another 3 days for practicing. A string quartet consisting of players coming over to Tunisia from Quebec, Indiana, Boston and Tunis was indeed delighted to see nearly an hour of string quartet madness where they expected long, long notes to play.
The CD was recorded in Tunisia - so another 2 weeks for changes, recordings, mixes and a day to relax - that was a great experience!
Also recording piano in Tunis is something definitely uncommon there, and was fun to see the tiny details like a blind man tuning the piano and telling me: "You are from Poland - I remember general Paderewski, great pianist."
It was great to get to know wonderful musicians all over the world - serbian percussionist Goran Milosevic, french guitar player Quentin Dujardin, strings -Sarah Wood, Lilian Belknap and Robin Ryczek (who also gave a masterclasses in Tunis as they were representatives of Cultures in Harmony organisation), Nidhal Jedali and of course Amine and Hamza M'raihi, and their great friends and family.

But that's not all as far the news goes - we recorded Stryjoin september - the weird trio - with Michał Bryndal and Maciej Szczyciński. We had a pleasure of winning some studio time in RG Studio in Radio Gdańsk - so we took the opportunity and extended that into a 3-day recording fest. We asked Błażej Domański - a nice and likeable guy working for Studio 7 in Piaseczno who has a tremendous ear for details to be the recording engineer for this one.

Where did my holidays go?

(update: thanks to Mr. William Harvey for reminding me that American master string players don't pop in by themselves as far as Tunis is concerned)

Pierwsze, wstepne proby katowickiego bigbandu akademii muzycznej wspartego orkiestra nikoli kolodziejczyka, o ktorej mozna przeczytac w dziale projektow - sa za nami. Pierwsze wrazenia - im trudniejsze nuty rozdaje tym szybciej I lepiej ida. Proste do grania rzeczy najwyrazniej usypiaja czujnosc muzykow u szczytu technicznych mozliwosci. Studia - okres czasu na cwiczenie, braku problemow ze zlobkiem drugiego synka I innych ciekawostek wymyslonych po to, by ciezko pracujacy muzyk mogl pracowac efektywniej bez czasu na cwiczenie.  read more »

Related event: Extended Big Band - My Piano Master's Degree How to lead a rehearsal Marcin Żupański The Big Exit

Jim Beard, one of the great music producers of our time, very skilled composer and sideman to such big names as John Scofield, Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin and Wayne Shorter recently gave a workshop in our insitute. He has recorded with artists from an extremely wide range of musical styles - from Dizzy Gillespie to the Brecker Brothers, Dianne Reeves to Meshell Ndegeocello, Toninho Horta to Walter Becker.  read more »

Related event: Shorter than Joe - live electronics

I am proud to announce that from now on I will be getting my compositional knowledge from Ed Partyka - great composer and big band guru. As a nice touch for marking a year of this tutoring we are planning a big concert for the 5th of june 2009. One hour long Extended Big Band piece will be played as my piano masters degree recital. It is planned to place this event in Symfonia Concert Hall in Katowice.

Related event: Big band a sprawa polska