Still Wonderland

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Still Won­der­land is a new, unique project by the Tri-City string quar­tet Neo­Quar­tet. Four out­stand­ing instru­men­tal­ists spe­cial­is­ing in con­tem­po­rary music per­for­mance explore the son­ic world of the acoustic string quar­tet using the lat­est tech­no­log­i­cal advances. 

The album Still Won­der­land is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the artis­tic path cho­sen by the ensem­ble in 2022, when Neo­Quar­tet’s first orig­i­nal album was cre­at­ed. Record­ed on elec­tric instru­ments togeth­er with loop­ers and syn­the­sis­ers, the album String The­o­ry was released in 2022 on the Requiem Records label. The album received excel­lent reviews and deci­sive­ly broad­ened the artis­tic spec­trum of the quar­tet’s activ­i­ties. The album Still Won­der­land takes Neo­Quar­tet’s artis­tic devel­op­ment one step further.

In musi­cal terms, the project will draw on the aes­thet­ics of the Mod­ern Clas­si­cal genre. The atmos­phere of deep relax­ation in the com­po­si­tions will be cre­at­ed by the warm, min­i­mal­ist, at times rhyth­mic sounds of the acoustic string quar­tet — looped through the use of four loop­ers — along­side elec­tron­ics that cre­ate, on one hand, an ambi­ent back­drop, and on the oth­er, a pul­sat­ing, trance-like rhythm that builds ten­sion with­in the pieces. The dura­tion of the mate­r­i­al is planned at 50 minutes. 

In the live con­cert ver­sion, the music will be accom­pa­nied by visu­als cre­at­ed in real time by Gary Garnowski.

Programme:

orig­i­nal music by NeoQuartet

Performers:

Neo­Quar­tet
Karoli­na Piątkows­ka – Now­ic­ka vio­lin
Paweł Kapi­ca vio­lin
Michał Markiewicz vio­la
Krzysztof Pawłows­ki cel­lo

Production:

pro­gramme con­cept: Neo­Quar­tet
visu­als: Gary Gar­nows­ki
sound engi­neer­ing: Karol Zbarac­ki
pro­duc­tion: Olga Pasek
visu­al iden­ti­ty: Alek­san­dra Ołdak
organ­is­er: Inde­pen­dent Artist spół­ka z o.o.

The Hash­tag Lab Con­tem­po­rary Music Space is co-financed by the Cap­i­tal City of War­saw.
The media patron of the Hash­tag Lab Con­tem­po­rary Music Space is POLMIC​.PL and Dwój­ka Pol­skie Radio.
Fund­ed by the Euro­pean Union NextGenerationEU

The project is financed under the Nation­al Recov­ery and Resilience Plan (KPO) from funds — EUROPEAN UNION — NextGen­er­a­tionEU under Invest­ment A2.5.1 “Pro­gramme sup­port­ing the activ­i­ty of enti­ties in the cul­ture sec­tor and cre­ative indus­tries to stim­u­late their development”.

If you’d like to know more about the artists/works:

NEOQUARTET
They are pas­sion­ate about art and con­tem­po­rary music. They love to cre­ate, per­form con­certs, push bound­aries, and chal­lenge estab­lished pat­terns. They great­ly val­ue the oppor­tu­ni­ty to col­lab­o­rate with artists from all fields of art and to inspire one anoth­er. They are fas­ci­nat­ed by build­ing a con­nec­tion with audi­ences, offer­ing the chance to be trans­port­ed to oth­er dimen­sions and to gain a new per­spec­tive on the world.

Extra­or­di­nary ener­gy, total com­mit­ment, free­dom of expres­sion and forg­ing new paths of devel­op­ment — these are the qual­i­ties that define NeoQuartet.

Neo­Quar­tet is one of the most inter­est­ing and most active ensem­bles spe­cial­is­ing in con­tem­po­rary music in Europe. They are recip­i­ents of the pres­ti­gious Pomeran­ian Artis­tic Award. They have also been nom­i­nat­ed for a num­ber of oth­er awards (Sztorm Roku, Fry­dery­ki). The ensem­ble has 20 CDs to their name, released on Pol­ish, Ger­man, Greek and Amer­i­can labels. 

Since 2017, Neo­Quar­tet has expand­ed their instru­men­ta­tion to include elec­tric MIDI string instru­ments, syn­the­sis­ers and loop­ers, cre­at­ing a unique phe­nom­e­non on the world new music scene. In 2022, the ensem­ble’s first album of orig­i­nal music pre­miered. The album “String The­o­ry” set new direc­tions for the devel­op­ment of the string quar­tet in the 21st century.

Neo­Quar­tet per­forms in Poland and abroad. Between 2012 and 2024, they gave over 500 con­certs across almost every cor­ner of the world, per­form­ing in such pres­ti­gious venues as Carnegie Hall in New York and For­bid­den City Con­cert Hall in Beijing.

The ensem­ble con­sists of: Karoli­na Piątkows­ka – Now­ic­ka (1st vio­lin), Paweł Kapi­ca (2nd vio­lin), Michał Markiewicz (vio­la) and Krzysztof Pawłows­ki (cel­lo). 

The ensem­ble organ­is­es its own fes­ti­val, NeoArte — Syn­teza­tor Sztu­ki, which has tak­en place in Gdańsk every year since 2012.

Gary Gar­nows­ki
A grad­u­ate of the paint­ing depart­ment at the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Visu­al artist — his main field of explo­ration is video, pro­jec­tion, light and move­ment. He per­forms reg­u­lar­ly as a VJ, mix­ing his own ani­ma­tions in real time with live music. He has pre­sent­ed his skills at numer­ous con­certs and events in Poland and abroad, includ­ing Open’er Fes­ti­val, Mama Vil­nius Jazz Fes­ti­val, Jazz nad Odrą, Soundrive, and Biedowo Music Fes­ti­val. He feels most at home impro­vis­ing — a trait he picked up from the jazz musi­cians he most fre­quent­ly per­forms with. He also works on com­mer­cial projects, cre­at­ing 3D map­pings and large-for­mat pro­jec­tions, ani­ma­tions, motion design and edit­ing. He shares his exper­tise as an assis­tant in the Pub­lic Space Art stu­dio at the Paint­ing Fac­ul­ty and as a lec­tur­er in Gen­er­a­tive Image Manip­u­la­tion at the Inter­me­dia Fac­ul­ty of his alma mater, as well as in work­shops he leads. In his pri­vate life, a lover of bicy­cles and coffee.

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