The first weekend of the festival will be intense. Our longtime friends will play on the NFM stages. We will see Peter Knight, an Australian trumpeter, during a Sunday concert in the beautiful Hand to Earth project, which dates back to one of the oldest surviving traditions of performing music by Aboriginal people. I’m sure that it will be a completely new quality for our audience. The guests from Canada – Like the Mind – will also play during the same event. This project is led by violinist Meredith Bates and features Peggy Lee, one of the leading Canadian improvisers of our time, who plays the cello. The day before, i.e. on Saturday, we will hear Samora Pinderhughes, a pianist and vocalist who cannot be pigeonholed into any genre.
Marta Warelis, a phenomenal pianist and improviser, will perform on Thursday during the new iteration of the musical meditation. Permanently residing in the Netherlands, the Polish artist will play in a duet with Frank Rosaly. We will also witness the premiere of a new project by Craig Taborn with the Lutosławski Quartet – the first movement could already be heard by the New York audience during the 7th edition of the festival in the capital of jazz, but the whole composition will be heard for the first time in Wrocław. Traditionally, we will listen to a concert in the Melting Pot series. It’s always a lot of emotions because you never know what surprises the musicians will prepare. And on Saturday, Jakob Bro will perform with his trio in a star lineup with Marilyn Mazur and Palle Mikkelborg.

Jazztopad Festival 2023 will be crowned with a concert celebrating the eighty-fifth birthday of Charles Lloyd, who has already visited Wrocław many times, and we can confidently call him our friend. I think it will be a perfect summary of the idea of this year’s edition, i.e. a celebration of closeness, community and friendship. Especially as Jakob Bro, who has been dreaming about it for many years, will play with Lloyd as a special guest. I am super happy the meeting of the two will take place for the first time during Jazztopad.

It has always been very important to me to enable artists to establish close relationships with the audience, which is why for some time I have not been a supporter of the classic arrangement of concert halls, radically separating musicians and listeners. This time in the Main Hall we will employ a new formula, previously used only once, during the Meditation Day. This close contact is important not only for the audience, but also for the artists who want to feel part of the entire festival community. In this spirit, we also continue concerts in Mleczarnia and in living rooms.
 
See you in November!

Piotr Turkiewicz
Artistic Director
Jazztopad Festival