The second evening of Jazztopad Festival will be an invitation to distant musical journeys, yet lovers of beaten paths may feel surprised. During the two-part concert, artists from Canada and Sweden will take us to the open sea of improvisation, and musicians from Australia and South Korea will lead us through Aboriginal wilderness.

Like the Mind is the sum of the talents of six artists working together despite thousands of kilometres separating them. The harpist Elisa Thorn, the cellist Peggy Lee and the violinist Meredith Bates work in Vancouver, Canada. On the other side of the globe – in Sweden – live the pianist Lisa Ullén, the cellist Emma Augustsson and the saxophonist Lisen Rylander Löve. Bates is at the helm, known, among others, for her collaborations with the bands Pugs and Crows and Gentle Party. Her solo album was released at the end of 2020, Like the Mind was founded a few months earlier. The group’s debut album, Live at Fylkingen, is a recording of their first concert. The second album was also recorded during a concert – last year at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, so the Swedish-Canadian balance is visible in the band’s discography too.

In the second part of the concert, the musical journey will veer into discovering regions that are usually unknown to jazz fans from Europe – Aboriginal songs, because they are the foundation of the Hand to Earth project. Daniel and Davis Wilfred are the custodians of a more than forty-thousand-year-old vocal tradition of manikay songs handed down verbally from generation to generation in the language of the Yolngnu tribe. Supporting the brothers with her vocals, Sunny Kim is an acclaimed singer from South Korea. The instrumentation of this extraordinary musical substance was created by Peter Knight, who has been leading the Australian Art Orchestra for ten years, under the auspices of which the group operates. Knight focused on minimalism, reached for electronics and invited the clarinetist Aviva Endean to cooperate. The fruit of the collaboration of these five artists is the album Hand to Earth released in 2021. In Wrocław, violinist Amalia Umeda will join the project.

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