Portraits Adam Bałdych, Sebastian Zawadzki, Marek Konarski, Andrzej Święs, Dawid Fortuna

• 1 Genesis 04:38
• 2 Canon 04:47
• 3 Tree of Knowledge 03:36
• 4 Protest Song 05:50
• 5 Code 05:00
• 6 Litany 03:56
• 7 Passion 05:41
• 8 Lullaby for Ulma Family 02:19
• 9 River 04:29
• 10 Depths of the Earth 05:06
• 11 Vision (Talking to Jesus) 03:42
• 12 Hamsa 05:42
• 13 Prelude 00:42
• 14 Whispers 01:55
• 15 Relief 04:19
• Total Runtime 01:01:42

Info for Portraits

In Portraits, Polish violinist and composer Adam Bałdych crafts an extraordinary musical journey, blending lamentation, jubilation, and prayer to reflect on the fragility of life and a call for peace. Inspired by historical accounts and today’s conflicts, Bałdych’s virtuosic violin—both standard and Renaissance—leads his Polish quintet in a seamless interplay of improvisation and precision. This meticulously crafted album transcends words, offering a powerful narrative of hope, beauty, and resilience that resonates deeply.

There is an urgency and an intensity about Polish violinist/composer Adam Bałdych; both traits run deep in his work. A total commitment to what he does is clear from the music that he makes and the emotions he conveys. But in “Portraits” such imperatives have been strengthened: the music carries astonishing pathos and weightiness of expression, as are natural for an artist reflecting on these troubled times. Bałdych explains: ‘When I was working on the pieces, reports from people who survived the Second World War were a source of inspiration for me. The topic feels very important to me in view of the growing conflicts in Europe and the world. I read eyewitness accounts from that time and I wanted to take a stand against what thousands have to suffer again today. A call for peace in the world. A variety of very emotional pieces has been created, which attempt to portray people and living conditions and the times in which we live. It is about worries, but also about the indescribable beauty of the world which I try to capture in my sounds and in the music’.

There is a spiritual side to this music too. “Portraits” combines lament, prayer, jubilation and exuberance. After all, for an artist to want to contribute to the discussion is only human - even if as an instrumental musician he doesn’t have words at his disposal. And yet speechless is not a word you could ever use to describe Adam Bałdych, quite the opposite. His music opens up a realm of experience that extends beyond the boundaries of the spoken word. He is a virtuoso, educated in Katowice and at Berklee College, with many awards to his name, and also the experience of having played in venues all over the world.

And yet he is also a team player who knows how important it is to let ideas take form, to come to life by first affecting those around him: ‘When I brought the music to the band rehearsal, we first spent a lot of time working out the instrumentation and arrangements. It was a bit like classical music, we listened to the registers of the instruments and looked for the appropriate space for them to really speak at their most powerful. The process was a meticulous, almost surgical. Although we are all improvisers, and each of us wanted to put as much of our individual voice into the music as possible, we also wanted to plan precisely the execution with great precision, as the best way to maintain that freedom and not lose any of our personalities. It was a very inspiring process.’

This creative tension between the inward- and the outward-facing, between personality and community is at the heart of this programme of 15 pieces. Adam Bałdych's violins lead the music, both his normal instrument and his splendidly sonorous Renaissance violin (a unique replica by an Austrian luthier), which opens up lower registers with its woody tones. There is a vigorous and lively energy in his longstanding Polish quintet: ‘We have a very honest relationship with each other, based on an understanding of the culture and tradition we grew up in. And we understand each other intuitively, giving each other the space to develop narratives. It's like a polyphonic composition, made up of many voices, each one letting one fellow player into the foreground, with the others then acting as a counterpoint. Each of us is an independent personality, we respect each other and at the same time we all respect the music as a whole, and develop it together.’ “Portraits” has emerged into life as a force field.

There is a reason why “Portraits” is not just thought-provoking but also uplifting. And that is because the Adam Bałdych Quintet has an incredibly powerful story to tell. Even without the use of words.

Adam Bałdych, violin, renaissance violin
Sebastian Zawadzki, piano, upright piano
Marek Konarski, tenor saxophone
Andrzej Święs, double bass
Dawid Fortuna, drums

Adam Bałdych
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.

Booklet for Portraits