In early 2004, they were presented with the BBC WORLD MUSIC AWARD 2004 in Edinburgh!in 2006 they won the Polish Grammy"Frederik Award" Following a one-year "maternity/paternity leave”, WARSAW VILLAGE BAND returned 2008/9 to the world of CDs and concert stages with two new albums. Another maternity leave of Maja Kleszcz made a line up change from fall 2010 necessary. The two former band members Magda and Sylvia returned for Maya and Wojtek and started to perform two energetic concert on Germany biggest classical festival / (Schleswig Holstein Festival) in late July 2010.
Warsaw Village Band are:
Magda Sobzak : dulcimer (Hackbrett), Gesang
Sylvia Swiatkowska : Violine, Viola, Zuka, Vocals
Ewa Walecka: Violine
Pawel Mazurczak: Bass
Maciej Szajkowski: Percussion
Piotr Glinski: Percussion
The first to appear was the remix CD "Upmixing”. In response to countless requests from the world’s DJs, this CD was produced with the consent of the musicians. The band’s only condition was that it should be a Reggae remix album on the basis of their last studio CD "Uprooting”. This CD climbed to fifth place on the European and first place on the German world-music charts, is meanwhile to be found in the Polish pop charts and whets your appetite for the new studio album "Infinity”, to follow in November 2008, a few months after the release of the remix CD "Upmixing”.
A Brief History of the Band
The "WVB” made its first major spectacular performance in 1999 at the Sopot Festival on a stage it shared with world stars. JARO producer Ulrich Balss, who was represented at the festival with several artists, discovered this young band with the fourteen-year-old Maja Kleszcz on the cello. It was not until in the spring of 2003, however, that the second CD "People’s Spring” was released by JARO. That’s when the ensemble began to conquer the world – concerts in places as far-flung as Alaska, Japan, Taiwan, Portugal, Moscow and Paris reaped exuberant reviews.
Meanwhile they’re a symbol of young, intelligent Eastern European music which combines traditions with modern elements and is capable of eliciting enthusiastic responses from rock audiences and traditionalists alike. In London they were even referred to, among other things, as the Polishl Pogues. Their music has established itself in Europe and the world! These distinctions were followed by composition commissions for video games and movie sound tracks, theatre productions and concerts all over the world. The British BBC honoured the band with a sixty-minute portrait which has since been broadcast in several European countries. Their CDs were licensed in America and Japan, and the WARSAW VILLAGE BAND is meanwhile the most successful Eastern European ensemble outside the mainstream.
The band’s creative heads are Maja Kleszcz – vocals and cello, the sextet’s front woman, and Wojtek Krzak – violin and zuka. The two formed the production team INCARNATIONS which was responsible for their new CD "Infinity”.
Sylwia Swiatkowska
was born in Warsaw in 1974. After having finished the violin class at high music school and musicology studies, she started working with several Polish folk groups and eventually joined the WVB in 2000. She is one of the best violinists of the Polish scene. In 2002, she was awarded the "Golden Violin" during the New Tradition Festival in Warsaw. Her way of playing shows how much she has been inspired by jazz music. She also plays the old Polish fiddle, a unique instrument similar to the Indian sarangi. Now the sound of her violin is a characteristic trace of the WVB sound.
Magdalena Sobczak
comes from Swidnik, in the Eastern part of Poland, where she was born in 1978. She finished her musicology studies in Warsaw as well as the percussion class at Lublin music high school. In course of her studies she was invited to Finland to the Folk Instruments Institute where she discovered a lot of similarities between Polish and Scandinavian music. She plays the dulcimer, a very rare Polish instrument: there are just a few dulcimer players in the Polish music-scene. Magdalena has joined the WVB in 2002.
Maja Kleszcz
Maja Kleszcz
is the daughter of a well-known family, born in Warsaw in 1985. Her father Wlodzimierz Kleszcz is a Polish music journalist, also known as the producer of Twinkle Brothers & Trebunie Tutki albums who dedicated themselves to world music. Maja is a real expert of Reggae and African music. She started playing with the WARSAW VILLAGE BAND when she was 14 years old and is the youngest member.
Her beautiful voice and the powerful way she plays her cello made her a shooting star of the Polish roots music scene and even outside the country she could establish a good reputation. In spite of her youth, she already managed to make a compromise between the "white voice" and classical singing, creating her own style. From time to time she also works as a presenter and co-author for the Polish Radio. She is the founder of the “Incarnations” project as well, working with Senegalese and Mauritanian artists, known for their work with artists like Baaba Maal and Ali Farka Toure (Wojtek Krzak was also involved in this project).
www.incarnations.pl
.
Maciej Szajkowski
Maciej Szajkowski - frame drums, percussions
Maciej Szajkowski was born in Warsaw in 1975. He is the founder of the WVB and a graduate of the Warsaw University, carrying a degree in Political Sciences and Journalism. At the beginning of his musical career he played in several independent, punk rock and hard core bands, (incl. Antidotum as well as the folk band Yuva Shakti, Wianki Samagri). Furthermore he worked as a journalist and co-worker for publications such as “Sztandar”, “Antena Krzyku”, “Nowa Wies”, “Machina”, “Gadki z chatki”, “Puls Swiata” and for the following radio stations - Polskie Radio, Jazz Radio, Las Vegas. Maciej also was the author of the “Muzykanty” - series, presenting profiles of traditional Polish musicians and folk bands. Since 2000 he regularly has been organizing the „Muzyka w Muzeum” concert series, taking place at the Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw – www.muzykawmuzeum.serpent.pl. In addition to that he inherits the position of an Ethnic music popularizer - in Europe as well as in Asia and is a member of the Masala soundsystem and co-creator of the electro-ethnic Village collektive.
Piotr Glinski
was born in Warsaw in 1972. He is the band´s best educated member: he finished the percussion class at the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw and has been a music teacher for primary and secondary school. Piotr played with philharmonic and chamber orchestras as a soloist (he used to play his wife´s compositions on marimba, for instance). After he had left the academy, he started his roots music career. For a few years, he has been a member of "Zespó? Polski", a legendary Polish folk group. With them, he toured through countries like Japan, Germany, France and many more. As a part of the the Warsaw Village Band his drum performance is quite essential: among other basic musical features it forms the band´s musical heart.
Wojciech Krzak
is an antopologist, etnologist and journalist. He was born in 1980 in Kozienice, a small town in the Mazovia area. As one day he met the traditional violin master Kazimierz Zdrzalik he has been so deeply impressed by him that he decided to learn playing the violin the old Polish way. Today, he is one of the youngest musicians in Poland who commands this style. Wojciech became a member of the Warsaw Village Band when he moved to Warsaw to study there. It is because of the characteristic style with which he plays his violin that makes him transporting a very important part of the WVB sound.
Besides being a musician, he works as a press journalist - as the head director of the World Music section “Free Colours”– the biggest roots, reggae, world magazine in Poland.
Together with Maja Kleszcz he started the “Incarnations” project, working as radio dj’s (Wolrd Music shows) for the polish radio. Their biggest success was Charlie Gillett’s compilation “World 2006” where you can find their project among stars like the Kronos Qartet and Amadou & Mariam.
WOJCIECH KRZAK - Violine, Drehleier MAJA KLESZCZ - (Baß) Cello, Gesang
"One of the new promising New Folk Bands from Eastern Europe. WVB perform folk music combined with medieval music and a pinch of 'Apocalyptica'." (Nordwestzeitung, Germany, July 2003)
"WARSAW VILLAGE BAND blows a wind of change into the Polish folk scene. For Western Europeans, Poland remains an unknown neighbour, even if the country already has one foot in the door of the European Union. And despite the fact that the Polish folk scene is presently bursting with vitality. The Warsaw Village Band is one of the most outstanding groups to come out of Poland in the past few years. Folk music is undergoing a kind of renaissance in Poland, and has become extremely fashionable.
Older people still playing traditional Polish instruments served as the major inspiration for the musicians of the WARSAW VILLAGE BAND. It was with the help of those people that most of the band members learned to play the old instruments auto-didactically. 'We travelled from village to village, seeking out the old people; we listened to their music and their stories. What surprised us most was that no one else in the villages is interested in this music anymore. These are old people, and when they die, the music will die with them.' All credit is due to these old people: they are the reason why the members of the WVB are able to play their instruments the traditional way.
The most interesting instrument in the collection of the WARSAW VILLAGE BAND is certain to be the Suka, played by Sylwia: its an old Polish kind of violin, having its origins in the sixteenth century. Its strings are played with the fingernails. The other two women in the band play the zither and the cello, two of the men play drums, and one of them the violin and hurdy-gurdy.
The womens´voices are powerful: sometimes they sound rather shrill but always forceful and impressive. 'The WVB´s style of singing is based on the so-called white voice, a traditional vocal technique originating from the shepherds´shouts, always on the top of their voices. This is combined with the traditional techniques for playing the old Polish instruments.'" (Folk World)
"The WARSAW VILLAGE BAND adds medieval sounds and a pinch of Apocalyptica to folklore!Violins sing, a cello is played by brute force, drums resound into the farthest corners." (Nordwest-Zeitung Oldenburg/Germany, July 2003)
"The success of the WARSAW VILLAGE BAND stems from its musicians' great love for their national musical heritage and their will to preserve the old musical traditions. For these musicians, however, preservation does not mean restoration but – as we have experienced with 'The Pogues' or 'Les Negresses Vertes', for example – reanimation, i. e. the transportation of the old songs’ spirit into the here and now. Polka gets a shot of Techno, and despite the acoustic instrumentalisation, the band conjures up sounds that have electronic impact." (Rheinische Post/Germany, Jan. 2004)
COMMENTS FROM UK, BBC 3 and audience visited their concerts:
The Warsaw Village Band have already run off with a Best Newcomer trophy from the BBC's Awards for World Music 2004. The rebellious Polish six-piece describe their house style as 'hardcore folk', and the signature sound is indeed formed by uncompromising traditionalism, updated with a guttural punk rock aesthetic.
Hopsasa (1998) JARO 4265-2 People's Spring (2002) JARO 4247-2 Uprooting (2004) JARO 4261-2 Upmixing(remix CD 2008) JARO 4286-2 Infinity (2008) JARO 4289-2
In early 2004, they were presented with the BBC WORLD MUSIC AWARD 2004 in Edinburgh!in 2006 they won the Polish Grammy"Frederik Award" Following a one-year "maternity/paternity leave”, WARSAW VILLAGE BAND returned 2008/9 to the world of CDs and concert stages with two new albums. Another maternity leave of Maja Kleszcz made a line up change from fall 2010 necessary. The two former band members Magda and Sylvia returned for Maya and Wojtek and started to perform two energetic concert on Germany biggest classical festival / (Schleswig Holstein Festival) in late July 2010.
Warsaw Village Band are:
