Middle age
It's been two years since we played together with Wojtek Blecharz. He moved to San Diego to work on his PhD in compositoin. In June he came for a summer time to Warsaw and I was shocked when he offered me to play a concert in duo with a medieval repertoire. I knew that Wojtek was very commited to ancient music, but c'mon - I play live electronics.It turned out that the concert was the first one in the series of solo performances in classical music played from XXI century perspective produced by Wojtek Zrałek in Warszawa.
It took us some time to figure out what does it mean to play five hundred years old music nowadays, but finally we managed to do it. During the concert we made some mistakes, some parts were "just ok", some were really great. Finally though we feel, we found some contemporary contexts for the listeners and showed a few very different approaches toward medieval music a few centuries later.
Wojciech Blecharz - block flutes, traverso
trzewiczek - sound processing & electronics
25.07.2010 @ Nowy Wspaniały Świat, Warszawa
Budapest
When Paweł Bukowski told me about the festival he's organizing and who's gonna play on it – frankly – I was little aware of most of the performers. I've known one of them – Piotr Bukowski – for years, so I was very happy to meet him there and hopefully play some short duo, I've already met Patryk Lichota and Piotr Tkacz during their concert as Kurort in Kraków, but the rest...
After we came to Budapest and found the club, I asked the barkeeper if he knows anything about the festival or maybe know where to find Paweł Bukowski. The Hungarian part of the answer was unpronounceable for me, but followed by English: “Who?”. We found ourselves alone in the center of the country that speaks the language, I can't even say “Hello” in. The hot wave came across my body.
Finally everything went cool and easy. We've met a lot of really nice people and great performers, had a chill-out time and bought some local food. If the Slovakian police wouldn't stop us and push to pay bloody 100 EUR, the weekend would be perfect.
During two days of the festival I played twice. Once in the trio with Patryk Lichota (prepared saxophone) and Gergő Kováts (saxophones and flute) and once in the duo with Gergő. I was a bit suspicious when I've heard that we're gonna play a meet-on-stage trio with two saxohpnes. As Lê Quan Ninh said ones: In the very first minute everyone spends everything. Thankfully guys tried to keep very subtle and focused so there were only a few moments when my electronics were covered by the reeds to the extend of total inaudibility. The next day we played with Gergő two short pieces in duo – very nice and consistent gig!
The video from the duo recorded by Atilla Dóra above. The audio from the trio as soon as I get it!
Márkos Albert - cello
János Bujdosó - guitar
Piotr Bukowski - guitar
András Halmos - drums
Ernő Hock - double-bass
Gergő Kováts - saxohpones, flute
Patryk Lichota - prepared saxophone, laptop
Piotr Mełech - bass clarinet
Balázs Pándi - drums
Máté Pozsár - piano
Radar - analog synth
Piotr Tkacz - objects
Tigrics - electronics
trzewiczek - live electronics
07-08.05.2010 - Srly, Budapest
Organic music
It all became quite serious when Marcin Barski expressed what kind of things he is interested in when it comes to my music. Our interests meet in that case as the organic music is definitely something I'm looking for. I don't get it still that much, but it seems to be the problem number one on my to-do list.We played another concert with Phil in Eszeweria followed by my solo. It was great to play with him again. The last time the recording was really bad (see previous post), so I asked Piotrek Żyła if he could record us this time properly. He was very eager to do that, but two days before he called me and said: "Unfortunately I'm going to Leipzig, but I talked already with Michał Dymny - he's gonna record it and I'll do the rest!". Michał Dymny? The guitarist? Well... ok!
Michał reported that his very first lesson in "Live recording with Samplitude" was taken when Piotr was packing his stuff to Leipzig and that something wasn't working properly, but good for us right before the concert Michał found the problem!! The full recording soon.
It was a very good evening with a lot of friends around, good concert and a lot of fun. Recording of my solo set (recorded internally on my computer) to be found here:
08.04.2010 - Eszeweria, Kraków
Phil Palmer - THE duo!!
photo by Anna Bogdanowicz
For the moment now, four samples from the concert. Both recorded on the camcorder, so the sound quality is terrible, but it gives the feeling of the music somehow. Play loud, have fun, look forward for some good-quality recordings of the duo!
25.02.2010 - Eszeweria, Kraków
Bogdanowicz Trzewiczek - such a duo...
We wanted to work together for a long time, but there was no opportunity in fact. Finally we made the performance in Teatr Studio in Warszawa, but I wasn't playing the music, so there was no real live situation.
Then the trio with Łukasz Kozak came and we were happy to play live improv set. And it was really nice. Same evening right after the performance we went to Eszeweria to see Paweł Korbus concert and being in the good mood we ask Konrad Gęca if we could play a duo in there.
Finally, after one and a half year of talking about that we will play together in duo! The only problem I've got is that I have to concentrate on my knobs and buttons and I can't see Ania dancing...
You can see the second set of the performance (due to camera problems in the first set) and judge it by yourself. My opinion is that it was a very good concert and it's a great pleasure to work with Ania!!
02.02.2010 - Eszeweria, Kraków
Tołstoj...
Yeah, they called me again - this time it was Paweł Dobrowolski. He said that there is this theatre project in Łaźnia Nowa and "a laptop musician can't make it", so maybe I could replace him. It's always a pleasure to play instead of someone, isn't it? What's more - it takes place in three days! But you know, "never say no"!The very next day I called to Marzena Lis, who plays the piano in the piece and Marcin Liber who's the director and they told me that it's three hours long performance by one actor - Mariusz Benoit - reading 110 pages long Tolstoy's novel about one guy dying (Death of Ivan Iljich). Three hours of full concentration on stage!! I have never experienced such a thing before and after all I have to say it was a great experience. Looking forward for something like that again!
Śmierć Iwana Iljicza
Łaźnia Nowa, 27.01.2010
performed by
Mariusz Benoit
directed
Marcin Liber
music
Marzena Lis, Krzysztof Trzewiczek
Global processing movement
A few months ago I decided to finally go legal. 600GB of various illegal data including movies, music and software was thrown to trash on my laptop. I felt, I'm tired of all those stories about "the system is bad", "who cares" and pseudo-anarchistic rhetoric.On 19 of January I had a presentation about open culture, Creative Commons and the ways it works. Free movies were shown including my favorite "Big Buck Bunny"!!
19.01.2010 - Eszeweria, Kraków
Bogdanowicz Kozak Trzewiczek - such a trio!
Never say no, when someone calls you. Someone (I suppose it was Łukasz Kozak himself) called and ask if Ania will dance on this one night long dance festival in Kraków in duo with Łukasz Kozak. She said "yes" and asked me if I would join them. Never say no... so we've got a trio!
Anna Bogdanowicz - dance
Łukasz Kozak - guitar
trzewiczek - live elctronics
10.12.2009 - Dworek Białoprądnicki, Kraków
Szajna / Witkacy
Sitting in the hospital I got desperate for some job after my release. So on Facebook I postedannouncement and 10 minutes later I got the message. There was a job for me in Warszawa. Paweł Dobrowolski asked me if I'd be interested in making music for the performance based on 1972 theatre piece "Witkacy" by Józef Szajna. In addition, the original music was made by Bogusław Schaeffer. That was enough for me - I wanted to do it.
After two days we started to prepare everything and suddenly it came out that Ania and I became responsible for mostly everything in that event.
The event went great. There were technical problems, personal problems and all the other problems. But still everything went great and we are happy we've done it.
performed by
Anna Bogdanowicz, Stanisław Brudny, Irena Jun, Olga Karoń, Władysław Kowalski, Jolanta Lothe, Marian Opania
script/directed
Anna Bogdanowicz & Krzysztof Trzewiczek (based on "Witkacy" by Józef Szajna)
choreography
Anna Bogdanowicz
music
Krzysztof Trzewiczek
video
Błażej Chwoła
Video samples very soon, but of music just now:
Soundtracks I
photo by Anna Bogdanowicz
"Three times is enough" i said in one of the previous posts. Not anymore. I performed with brand new collection of field recordings, movie scenes and classical music samples - all needed to make a nice and saturated soundtrack.
10.02.2009 - Eszeweria, Kraków
Lucio Capece
photo by Kawa - thx a lot!!
Text and some video soon!
More about Lucio you will find here:
http://www.luciocapece.blogspot.com/
02.02.2009 - Alchemia, Kraków
All Kinds of Death
"All Kinds of Death" is another theatre production by Paweł Passini and Łaźnia Nowa. The piece is based on Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha", but put to a bollywood/transplantology/live-and-death soup written by Adrtur Pałyga.It's probably the only opportunity to see me working as a VJ. Two days after premier i showed to people "the kitchen" of production pushing wrong button on the mixer and displaying my computer desktop on the floor of the scene [ca. 15x10 m.]. Every time we play the piece i do something like that - each time i'm looking forward for what will happen today!!
The premiere took place on Friday, 30th of January in old Światowid cinema in Kraków.
pController
Being lazy i learn, how to program with Processing, so i could make some small software for live performacne. Lazy, because most of what that software does, i could do by myself, but it's so much easier when the only decision you make is - should i turn it on/off now?
That's how the pController was developed. I've got more then a hundred parameters i could control during performance - obviously i could control around 20, maybe 30 of them by myself, but now i've got extra 20 controled automaticaly. I feel deep excitement of walking the way leading me to messy, absurd and useless complexity.
Thanks to Ken Perlin for his lovely organic noise algorithm.
The Other Room
I've been in Łodź just once for two hours before i got there for three weeks preparing next theatre performance with Paweł Passini and neTTheatre group. We spent most of the time in old, semi-renewed factory turned into art center. I prepared several camera effects in p5 - mostly based on some crazy, damaged video buffers playing wrong way, skipping, multiplying itself. One of them above. The fluids video in the middle by Maria Porzyc.
On the video - Anna Bogdanowicz and Katarzyna Tadeusz
Hamlet '44
Sitting in late June in Dym Cafe in Krakow i received an sms from Marek Chołoniewski: "You've got time on 1st of August? An action in Warsaw Uprising Museum". I'm not trained in guns and grenades, but i had time, so why not. It turned out that Marek was asked to prepare an interactive system to one scene in Paweł Passini's theatre piece "Hamlet '44", but he couldn't go.
I went there with a bundle of light sensors, two laptops, some Marek's Max/MSP patches and the very next day it turned out to be useless in the circumstances we had - 60x40 meters outdoor. Finally i prepared some strange combination of Bidule, Pd and GEM to make sound and video interactive. Besides that i got some training in shooting people with gun samples - kinda strange experience.
On the video - Maria Niklińska as Ophelia
Folds of memory
In June 2007 i started to work with the friend of mine, Magdalena Ciopińska. We started to experiment with two old-school projectors and very soon i joined with my mic, processing all the lovely sounds coming out from what Magda was doing. A year after the video took part in Magda's exhibition under the name "Folds of Memory". It took really long time to find such a serious name - the friend of mine even wrote short text published in the catalog from which i got to know what that name really means.
Magdalena Ciopińska - picture
trzewiczek - sound processing
15.06.2008 - BWA, Sanok
Integra Live
Hm... Some text soon.
07.06.2008 - Birmingham
Audrey Chen & Mikołaj Pałosz
When i heard that Audrey Chen is coming to Poland for a solo tour i couldn't resist - the idea to make a trio with her and my friend cellist, Mikołaj Pałosz was too tempting. Two emails and it was set up. We played in trio for two cellos, voice and s/p as a second set of the evening. And i think everything would be just perfect if i woundn't connect cabels left channel to right and oposite. For the most part of the gig i was desperately trying to find out why the system works in its own way.There is a guy in Warszawa, who promised me recording from that concert, but the mixdown takes him... how long it is right now?!
Solo
There comes a time you wanna do things by yourself. It came to me around May last year. I had no idea what i wanna do, so i started to cut, cut, cut...ep at Stranger Cafe
ep was active for half a year playing three duo concerts. The best one for sure was the one at Stranger Cafe in Kraków. We played two sets each 20 minutes. It was pure fun, lot of concentration and great audience - surprisingly there were even some people i hadn't met before. Nice gig, indeed.
Tomasz Chołoniewski - percussions
trzewiczek - sound processing
23.04.2008 - Stranger Cafe, Kraków
Wojtek Blecharz
We've met on Ad Libitum festival - he's a composer, so i asked him to write something for me, but he said that he won't because he'd better play with me some improv stuff. So my dream about dedicated composition was ruined, but instead i got lot of great time i spent with Wojtek playing a duo for flutes and s/p. Samples recorded sometime between November 2007 and May 2008 is to be found below - push the triangle button.Łukasz Kozak
First time we played together after sound workshops we gave for children in Solvay Art Center in Kraków. I had no instrument - my computer was broken as i remember - so i took a mixing board and started to turn knobs, FX and very nice EQ messing up with his electric guitar. For a next few months we made home rehearsals, which were a kind of fun for my cat as Łukasz brought some preparation stuff for his instrument - it all seemed a new kind of toys for the cat.ep
ep stands for electro-percussions and it's a great name, 'cause you can't find it on eMule - they require three letters at least. It's a duo project with Tomasz Chołoniewski, who plays a kind of strange semi-garbage percussions set.We played our first concert in October with Joan Laage, but in December we played the first duo - at Plan B. in Waszawa. Unfortunately i have no documentation, 'cause the Zoom recoder was too new for me and i recorded a whole set of silence.
13.12.2007 - Plan B., Warszawa
bep
In October 2007 Tomasz Chołoniewski - with whom i started to play recently - called me and said: "Wanna play a concert with me and Joan?". Obviously i wanted, so a few days later i played my first concert with the ugliest sound processing system ever. But it was ok. Joan Laage is a great dancer, so it was a real pleasure.
This was my first real public concert and the first that was reviewed. The article written by Phil Palmer can be read here (en).
Tomasz Chołoniewski - percussions
Joan Laage - butoh
trzewiczek - sound processing
23.10.2007 - Święta Krowa, Kraków
Home performances
During the summer 2007 I made three home performances mixing field recordings from soundtransit.nl It was a kind of fun, 'cause the recording were sent to the mixing board in random order, so i never knew what and when will come next. The third of these performances took place in the country side outdoor on my friend's Piotr Bukowski birthsday party. Three times for mixing same field material seemed to be enough.Risk - Study of the Concept
In June 2007 i had a great opporunity to work with the greatest polish actor, Jan Peszek. We gave two performances on 25th of June on the theatre festival Malta in Poznań. It was my stage debut - the best i could ever imagine. The performance tought me one very important lesson: never give a title before the first rehearsal. As it turned out, the title had very special, not too obvious connection with the piece.
Jan Peszek - performer
trzewiczek - everything else
25.06.2007 - Malta Festival, Poznań
