This year’s edition of the festival series Melting Pot will be led by saxophonist Paulina Owczarek. As every year, the performers – young, independent artists-improvisers – will meet in this interdisciplinary project to exchange experiences, thoughts on music and to sum up the 18th Jazztopad Festival.

The concept of Melting Pot refers to the oldest jazz traditions of jam sessions and the so-called workshops, laboratories where artists from different backgrounds and sometimes different disciplines met. The project is an important element of the Wrocław festival. It had its first edition in Wrocław in 2013. It does not focus only on music, although it includes open rehearsals as well as a concert. Melting Pot is interdisciplinary, also devoted to audio-visual arts and dance. In previous editions, Melting Pot was curated by the trumpeter Piotr Damasiewicz, and artists from among others Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Luxembourg, Italy, Israel, Ireland, the United States and, of course, Poland. Their meetings resulted in spontaneous, improvised and unpredictable creativity. They represented different countries, different types of music and sensitivities, and life experiences – factors that strongly influenced the sound of each of them.

This year, an international group of improvisers will be led by Paulina Owczarek, known as the founder of the Kraków Improvisers Orchestra – she plays in this formation, but above all she conducts a group of improvising musicians, thus creating a spontaneous composition. She also explores free improvisation during the concerts of the Institute of Intuition (with Tomasz Chołoniewski, Rafał Mazur and Michał Dymny). Paulina, who plays the alto and baritone saxophone, has taken part in projects combining improvised music with dance, painting and pantomime. She has cooperated with the London Improvisers Orchestra, Satoko Fujii Orchestra and Elder Space Bankers.