Paweł Janas

An excep­tion­al­ly ver­sa­tile musi­cian and com­pos­er. He nav­i­gates effort­less­ly across clas­si­cal, con­tem­po­rary, elec­tron­ic, and impro­vised music. He holds the title of World Cham­pi­on in dig­i­tal accor­dion per­for­mance (Roland) and is a lau­re­ate of the Vir­tu­al Accor­dion Fes­ti­val in Rome. Award­ed at over 30 com­pe­ti­tions, includ­ing those in Poland, France, Italy, Ger­many, Aus­tria, Lithua­nia, and Croatia.

He was includ­ed in the schol­ar­ship pro­gram Agraf­ka Muzy­cz­na, run by the J&S Pro Bono Polo­ni­ae Foun­da­tion and the Acad­e­my for Phil­an­thropic Devel­op­ment. He received a schol­ar­ship from the Kore­an Dongsan Research Foun­da­tion & Pro Polo­nia Soci­ety, as well as a schol­ar­ship from Soci­ete Gen­erale Bank. He is a recip­i­ent of the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Nation­al Her­itage schol­ar­ship, the City of War­saw schol­ar­ship, and a lau­re­ate of the pres­ti­gious Mło­da Pol­s­ka schol­ar­ship. He also received an indi­vid­ual schol­ar­ship for out­stand­ing achieve­ments from the May­or of War­saw, Han­na Gronkiewicz-Waltz. Fur­ther­more, he was hon­ored dur­ing the Nation­al Fes­ti­val of Music Com­pe­ti­tion Lau­re­ates “Tal­ent Week” in Kąś­na Dol­na (Paderews­ki Cen­ter), the Nation­al Fes­ti­val “Towards Art” in Lublin, and the Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val of Young Music Com­pe­ti­tion Lau­re­ates orga­nized by SILESIA.

He stud­ied at the Fry­deryk Chopin Uni­ver­si­ty of Music in War­saw in the accor­dion class of Prof. Jerzy Jurek and Prof. Klaudiusz Baran. In the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2011/2012, he con­tin­ued his stud­ies in the class of Prof. Grze­gorz Stopa at the Musik und Kun­st Pri­vatu­ni­ver­sität der Stadt in Vien­na. He also took mas­ter class­es under the guid­ance of renowned ped­a­gogues such as: Ina­ki Alber­di, Ste­fan Hus­song, Clau­dio Jaco­muc­ci, Alfred Melichar, Owen Mur­ray, Włodz­imierz Lech Puch­nows­ki, Mat­ti Raan­ta­nen, and Jurij Szyszkin.

He per­formed as a soloist and cham­ber musi­cian, as well as with orches­tras under the baton of con­duc­tors such as Zyg­munt Rychert, Krzysztof Kozłows­ki, Maciej Tworek, and Sła­womir Chrzanowski.

He is the first accor­dion­ist in his­to­ry to per­form as a soloist accom­pa­nied by the War­saw Nation­al Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra. He has per­formed in most Euro­pean coun­tries, the USA, Cana­da, and Chi­na. He has par­tic­i­pat­ed in many sig­nif­i­cant fes­ti­vals, includ­ing: Music at the Peaks in Zakopane, Mas­ter Evenings in Kąś­na, Roy­al Arcades of Art, Evenings at the Arse­nal, Musi­cal Gar­dens, Waw­er Music Fes­ti­val, East Music Fes­ti­val, TEDx War­saw, Musi­ca in Col­li­na, Sum­mer Con­certs at Gro­chows­ka, and Riv­er of Music.

He per­formed at the most impor­tant fes­ti­vals relat­ed to con­tem­po­rary music, includ­ing: War­saw Autumn, Musi­ca Poloni­ca Nova, Musi­ca Elec­tron­i­ca Nova, Sacrum Pro­fanum, Poz­nań Spring Music Fes­ti­val, KODY, POLIN Music Fes­ti­val, Tallinn Afekt Fes­ti­val, Alk­a­gran, War­saw Music Meet­ings, Com­pos­er Por­traits. He was a guest of Aga­ta Kwiecińs­ka on the Five O’Clock show on Pol­ish Radio.

He has released many albums, includ­ing But­ton­hack­er (2018), #Net­work Music (2018), Witka­cy (2018), Trash Music(2018), Small Talks (2015), Viseg­rad Songs (2015), and Mag­ic and Leg­ends – Mys­te­ri­ous Accor­dions (2012).

An impor­tant aspect of his artis­tic activ­i­ty is his col­lab­o­ra­tion with a group of com­posers from the younger gen­er­a­tion, includ­ing Zyg­munt Krauze, Piotr Tabakiernik, Rafał Jani­ak, Dar­iusz Przy­byl­s­ki, Woj­ciech Blecharz, Krzysztof A. Janczak, Tomasz Jakub Opał­ka, Igna­cy Zalews­ki, Mikołaj Majku­si­ak, and many oth­ers. The result of many years of col­lab­o­ra­tion is over 50 pre­mieres of solo, cham­ber, and larg­er works.

In 2009, he began col­lab­o­rat­ing with the com­pa­ny Roland, which pro­duces dig­i­tal accor­dions. Since 2013, he has been a mem­ber of the Hash­tag Ensem­ble, spe­cial­iz­ing in con­tem­po­rary and impro­vised music. In 2019, he added to his instru­men­tar­i­um the But­ton Accor­dion (world pre­miere), K‑Dron (world pre­miere), and a Quar­ter-Tone Accordion.