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Brothers

Adam Baldych & Helge Lien Trio

Brothers

Format: CD
Label: ACT music
UPC: 0614427981721
Catnr: ACT 98172
Release date: 08 September 2017
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1 CD
Buy at PlatoMania
 
Label
ACT music
UPC
0614427981721
Catalogue number
ACT 98172
Release date
08 September 2017

"Brothers, which is situated at the crossroads between classical, jazz and modern chamber music, certainly worthwhile to explore."

Written in Music, 11-1-2018
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
Press
EN

About the album

The title of Adam Bałdych’s previous album from 2015 was “Bridges”. And indeed, the Polish violinist is one of the leading builders of bridges between genres in current European jazz. Only 31 years old, he already has a whole sheaf of distinguished awards to his name, notably an ECHO Jazz Prize. His music combines Polish folk, classical music and many different kinds of jazz. He plays with an astonishing technical range, in which classical finesse is combined with swirling improvisation - and the defiant energy and power of rock music. Since 2015, Bałdych has been building these kinds of bridges in the company of the Norwegian Helge Lien Trio. “With Helge, Frode and Per Oddvar we have clocked up thousands of kilometres together; these musicians are way more than just a backing band,” says the violinist.

Adam Bałdych’s new album is called “Brothers,” and is dedicated to the memory of his brother who passed away. So, for Bałdych and his band colleagues, it is about far more than either mere virtuosity or entertainment. “I would like my music,” says Bałdych, “to ingrain itself into the present time, and also to reflect it. It should take on board the cares and the yearnings of now. What I really wish for my music is that it should convey a message about love and beauty; more than ever we ought to feel that we are brothers and sisters, in order to understand each other better.” This lofty goal is reflected in track titles such as “Faith”, “Love”, “One” and “Shadow”. And through all that shared experience of playing with Helge Lien on piano, Frode Berg on bass and Per Oddvar Johansen on drums, Bałdych has the ideal means to express many different aspects of brotherliness through music. The group is also joined on some tracks by Norwegian saxophonist Tore Brunborg, known for his work with artists such as Tord Gustavsen and Manu Katchè.

That deep sense of brotherliness between musicians is the starting-point for this band: “Only with complete trust and understanding can we achieve the objective of musical unity,” says Bałdych. “What we want is to embark on musical journeys without compromises, and to have the courage to discover the unknown.” This unity in their way of making music shines through in all nine tracks on this CD, of which eight are original compositions by Bałdych. The album also hangs together convincingly as a whole – to some extent it has become a concept album. Bałdych draws an extended arc which runs from the heavy and rocky anthem “Elegy”, through the ballad “Faith” which carefully draws the listener into its confidence and modulates from major to minor. It then takes in a lyrical pledge of unity (”One”) and the title track “Brothers” which agitatedly circles around its theme, and arrives at a point where “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen seems to emerge from nothingness, and quietly to disappear back into it.
“Compared to our last album “Bridges”, says Bałdych, “the music in "Brothers" is ‘dirtier’ and more uninhibited. It is as if we can exist on that knife-edge between what Lacan called “the cry” and silence. And that is how the world is now: joy and tragedy can co-exist right next to each other.”

The violinist is able truly to portray the entire gamut of emotions through music. In the pianissimo moments it is replete with feeling and also clarity, and on the other hand Bałdych can take it the it to a point where it is so strong and loud it feels almost ready to burst. The interaction of Polish and Scandinavian sounds, of the American and European traditions of improvising, and the ways in which styles and genres unite and complement each other...everything happens a way which carries that spirit of brotherliness. And so listeners are also inevitably drawn in - as spiritual brothers or sisters.

Artist(s)

Adam Bałdych (violin)

Violinist and composer. Born 18.05.1986 in Gorzow Wielkopolski, based in Warsaw. A graduate of the Academy of Music in Katowice, tutored by Henryk Gembalski. Since 2012 he has been associated with ACT music publisher seated in Munich. Dubbed “a violin prodigy”, he started his career at the age of 14. He was promptly recognised as an innovator combining the achievements of classical music and the contemporary language of the violin with an improviser’s talent. In a short time, he created his own style, which became an inspiration for a new generation of improvising violinists. He has presented his music at the most important jazz festivals and in prestigious concert halls, in countries such as: Poland, Germany, South Korea, China, Japan, the United States,...
more

Violinist and composer. Born 18.05.1986 in Gorzow Wielkopolski, based in Warsaw. A graduate of the Academy of Music in Katowice, tutored by Henryk Gembalski. Since 2012 he has been associated with ACT music publisher seated in Munich.

Dubbed “a violin prodigy”, he started his career at the age of 14. He was promptly recognised as an innovator combining the achievements of classical music and the contemporary language of the violin with an improviser’s talent. In a short time, he created his own style, which became an inspiration for a new generation of improvising violinists.

He has presented his music at the most important jazz festivals and in prestigious concert halls, in countries such as: Poland, Germany, South Korea, China, Japan, the United States, Canada, Austria, Iceland, Portugal, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy, Spain, and Indonesia. He has performed and recorded with extraordinary artists such as: Yaron Herman, Agata Zubel, Cezary Duchnowski, Helge Lien, Aaron Parks, Lars Danielsson, Nils Landgren, Iiro Rantala, Marius Neset, Jacob Karlzon, Joachim Kuhn, and Billy Cobham. He has received numerous prizes and awards, such as: The Grand Prix and the individual award of the Jazz nad Odrą festival (2006), ECHO Jazz - a German music industry award (2013), the Polish gold Cross of Merit (2016) and the Decoration of Honor Meritorious for Polish Culture (2016). In 2020, together with the Adam Bałdych Quartet, he became a finalist of the prestigious BMW Welt Jazz 2020 award, with results to be announced in January 2021.

Adam Bałdych has been more and more active as a classical composer, writing pieces commissioned by renowned orchestras. In 2015 he composed the Mozaika-Impresje piece commissioned by the Szczecin Baltic Neopolis Orchestra, and in 2016 he wrote Antiphona to the texts found in the Qumran caves for the Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej. In 2019 he prepared the Early Birds Symphony commissioned by the AUKSO orchestra for the Auksodrone festival, and he is about to realise further commissions for AUKSO. In 2021 Adam Bałdych’s new composition, commissioned by the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, will be premiered in Stuttgart.

Adam Bałdych is appreciated for his creativity in the field of jazz and contemporary music performance, blending the two domains in a creative manner, and a great expressivity of his musical interpretations. He has participated in recording nearly 20 albums. The latest, released in 2021 - Poetry - is the seventh album he wrote and performed in published by ACT. This album is Bałdych’s collaboration with the extraordinary Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu, the album appeared in the ranking of the most important publications of the year by the American portal Bandcamp and the British JazzWise magazine.


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Helge Lien (piano)

Tore Brunborg (saxophone)

Frode Berg (bass)

Composer(s)

Adam Bałdych (violin)

Violinist and composer. Born 18.05.1986 in Gorzow Wielkopolski, based in Warsaw. A graduate of the Academy of Music in Katowice, tutored by Henryk Gembalski. Since 2012 he has been associated with ACT music publisher seated in Munich. Dubbed “a violin prodigy”, he started his career at the age of 14. He was promptly recognised as an innovator combining the achievements of classical music and the contemporary language of the violin with an improviser’s talent. In a short time, he created his own style, which became an inspiration for a new generation of improvising violinists. He has presented his music at the most important jazz festivals and in prestigious concert halls, in countries such as: Poland, Germany, South Korea, China, Japan, the United States,...
more

Violinist and composer. Born 18.05.1986 in Gorzow Wielkopolski, based in Warsaw. A graduate of the Academy of Music in Katowice, tutored by Henryk Gembalski. Since 2012 he has been associated with ACT music publisher seated in Munich.

Dubbed “a violin prodigy”, he started his career at the age of 14. He was promptly recognised as an innovator combining the achievements of classical music and the contemporary language of the violin with an improviser’s talent. In a short time, he created his own style, which became an inspiration for a new generation of improvising violinists.

He has presented his music at the most important jazz festivals and in prestigious concert halls, in countries such as: Poland, Germany, South Korea, China, Japan, the United States, Canada, Austria, Iceland, Portugal, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy, Spain, and Indonesia. He has performed and recorded with extraordinary artists such as: Yaron Herman, Agata Zubel, Cezary Duchnowski, Helge Lien, Aaron Parks, Lars Danielsson, Nils Landgren, Iiro Rantala, Marius Neset, Jacob Karlzon, Joachim Kuhn, and Billy Cobham. He has received numerous prizes and awards, such as: The Grand Prix and the individual award of the Jazz nad Odrą festival (2006), ECHO Jazz - a German music industry award (2013), the Polish gold Cross of Merit (2016) and the Decoration of Honor Meritorious for Polish Culture (2016). In 2020, together with the Adam Bałdych Quartet, he became a finalist of the prestigious BMW Welt Jazz 2020 award, with results to be announced in January 2021.

Adam Bałdych has been more and more active as a classical composer, writing pieces commissioned by renowned orchestras. In 2015 he composed the Mozaika-Impresje piece commissioned by the Szczecin Baltic Neopolis Orchestra, and in 2016 he wrote Antiphona to the texts found in the Qumran caves for the Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej. In 2019 he prepared the Early Birds Symphony commissioned by the AUKSO orchestra for the Auksodrone festival, and he is about to realise further commissions for AUKSO. In 2021 Adam Bałdych’s new composition, commissioned by the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, will be premiered in Stuttgart.

Adam Bałdych is appreciated for his creativity in the field of jazz and contemporary music performance, blending the two domains in a creative manner, and a great expressivity of his musical interpretations. He has participated in recording nearly 20 albums. The latest, released in 2021 - Poetry - is the seventh album he wrote and performed in published by ACT. This album is Bałdych’s collaboration with the extraordinary Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu, the album appeared in the ranking of the most important publications of the year by the American portal Bandcamp and the British JazzWise magazine.


less

Press

Brothers, which is situated at the crossroads between classical, jazz and modern chamber music, certainly worthwhile to explore.
Written in Music, 11-1-2018

A chilling and intense warm hommage.
Trouw, 15-9-2017

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