North Waves is an album of world-premiere recordings that showcases the multiplicity and diversity of the currents flowing through the Gdansk school of composition. Featuring chamber music by nine composers, the album celebrates the musical melting pot of the Academy of Music in Gdansk.
The title North Waves reflects the concept behind this programme: combining the present with distant echoes of the past, juxtaposing the familiar with the foreign, evoking overlapping sea waves that are similar yet form different patterns, flowing out of each other, sometimes in the same direction and at other times colliding. This album is a musical record of the experiences of composers who are just beginning their creative journeys, as well as those who have long been creating contemporary music, contributing to the rich musical mosaic of Poland.
The repertoire ranges from Anna Roclawska-Musialczyk’s dreamlike Lullaby for another time, written especially for and dedicated to violist Krzysztof Komendarek-Tymendorf, whose acclaimed albums include Quantum of Silence on Odradek, to a texturally varied string quartet by Kamil Cieslik, to the eponymous North Waves for tenor solo, viola, accordion, hi-hat and tape by Krzysztof Olczak. Some of the composers also appear as performers, in an album that reveals the sheer variety and depth of music-making emerging from the Academy of Music in Gdansk.
