Surface of Timbre

If the tit­u­lar sur­face is the place where two faces of the same world meet, which of them does the real­i­ty of our exis­tence take sides with?

The sur­face becomes a mir­ror, in which the sub­ject views its own objec­ti­fied reflec­tion. But are we our­selves beneath the sur­face, yearn­ing to draw breath, or are we mere­ly observ­ing what lies there, inac­ces­si­ble to us? A point in noth­ing­ness, the mys­te­ri­ous non-being of being, binds what is real with what is vir­tu­al, inter­weaves what is tan­gi­ble with what is poten­tial. Here it is about acoustic real­i­ty, whose space is traced by the inten­si­ty of sound, tim­bre… tim­bre, the exten­sive­ness of mean­ings. To what extent is what our per­cep­tion detects the truth of nature, and how much is it the lie of cul­ture? Spec­tral trans­for­ma­tions of sound, elec­tron­ic pro­cess­ing, sounds gen­er­at­ed by com­put­er and the simul­ta­ne­ous explo­ration of the instru­men­t’s tim­bral pos­si­bil­i­ties. In a word, what is per­ceived when look­ing through the sur­face is no dif­fer­ent from what lies beside us — it is only its reflection.

Pro­gram:

Jan Stańczyk Haqel D’ma­Ma­teusz Ryczek Wele­sAr­tur Zaga­jew­s­ki Krach24Ewa Trębacz Thar­sis­Wo­j­ciech Błaże­jczyk Contrails

Per­form­ers:

Julian Paproc­ki con­tra­bass clar­inet­Ma­teusz Ryczek electronics

Pro­duc­tion:

Artis­tic con­cept, text: Julian Paprock­ipro­duc­tion: Aga­ta Krys­tekvi­su­al iden­ti­ty: Alek­san­dra Œdak­Sound engi­neer­ing: Woj­ciech Błażejczyk

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.

More about the artists:

Julian Paproc­ki – clar­inet­tist, soloist, impro­vis­er. Prin­ci­pal clar­inet­tist of the Pol­ish Roy­al Opera Orches­tra and a mem­ber of the “Chain Ensem­ble” led by Andrzej Bauer, as well as the artis­tic col­lec­tive “flow unit,” whose mem­bers are Poland’s lead­ing per­form­ers of con­tem­po­rary music. Doc­tor of Arts (2025, doc­tor­ate defend­ed with dis­tinc­tion) and lec­tur­er at the Graży­na and Kiejs­tut Bacewicz Music Acad­e­my in Łódź. A grad­u­ate of the Karol Szy­manows­ki Music Acad­e­my in Katow­ice in the clar­inet class of Arka­diusz Adams­ki. He also stud­ied at the Pôle Supérieur d’En­seigne­ment Artis­tique in Paris in the clar­inet class of Flo­rent Héau, the bass clar­inet class of Jean-Marc Vol­ta, and cham­ber music under Philippe Fer­ro. He addi­tion­al­ly stud­ied musi­col­o­gy (Uni­ver­sité Paris-Sor­bonne) and phi­los­o­phy (Uni­ver­si­ty of War­saw). He is a 37-time lau­re­ate of inter­na­tion­al and nation­al com­pe­ti­tions in clar­inet, organ, com­po­si­tion and cham­ber music. Grant recip­i­ent of, among oth­ers, the Nation­al Cen­tre for Cul­ture’s “Mło­da Pol­s­ka” pro­gramme (2017) and the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Nation­al Her­itage (2012). He has per­formed in most Pol­ish phil­har­mon­ic halls as well as abroad: in Aus­tria, the Czech Repub­lic, Esto­nia, France, Lithua­nia, Latvia, Ger­many, Nor­way, Por­tu­gal, Rus­sia, Slo­va­kia, Ukraine, Hun­gary and Italy. He pub­lish­es his com­po­si­tions and tran­scrip­tions in France (Gérard Bil­lau­dot Édi­teur, Klarthe Édi­tion) and in Poland (Pol­skie Wydawnict­wo Muzy­czne). In 2018 he took part in the PWM project “Sto na sto. Muzy­czne dekady wol­noś­ci” on the occa­sion of the cen­te­nary of Poland’s regain­ing of inde­pen­dence, record­ing cham­ber works by Kon­stan­ty Regamey and Tadeusz Wielec­ki. This album was award­ed the Phono­graph­ic Acad­e­my’s “Fry­deryk” Prize in the cat­e­gories “Most Out­stand­ing Record­ing of Pol­ish Music” and “Album of the Year.” In Jan­u­ary 2025, released by Requiem Records, his debut solo album Sur­face of Tim­bre appeared, fea­tur­ing works ded­i­cat­ed to him for con­tra­bass clar­inet and elec­tron­ics. The album includes works by com­posers such as Woj­ciech Błaże­jczyk, Maciej Jabłońs­ki, Michał Janocha, Mateusz Ryczek, Edward Sielic­ki, Jan Stańczyk, Ewa Trębacz and Artur Zagajewski.

He is reg­u­lar­ly invit­ed to give lec­tures and work­shops. Author of aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cles at the inter­sec­tion of musi­col­o­gy and phi­los­o­phy, as well as the mono­graph “Trzy ese­je o hermeneu­tyce muzy­ki” devot­ed to the philo­soph­i­cal analy­sis of musi­cal impro­vi­sa­tion, pub­lished by Wydawnict­wo Nieoczy­wiste (review­ers: Prof. Szy­mon Bywalec and Prof. Tadeusz Gadacz).

Mateusz Ryczek – com­pos­er. In 2011 he grad­u­at­ed with dis­tinc­tion from the Music Acad­e­my in Wrocław under Graży­na Pstrokońs­ka-Nawratil (com­po­si­tion), Cezary Duch­nows­ki (com­put­er com­po­si­tion) and Zbig­niew Kar­nec­ki (the­atre and film music). In 2019 he was award­ed the degree of Doc­tor of Musi­cal Arts (doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion enti­tled “Emer­gence of Pitch Algo­rithms Based on the Cel­lo Con­cer­to Zjawy”).

Works by Mateusz Ryczek have been per­formed many times in Poland and abroad (Ger­many, Spain, Por­tu­gal, Bel­gium, Chi­na, Turkey, Italy, Hun­gary, the Czech Repub­lic, Great Britain, Belarus, Rus­sia, Switzer­land, Aus­tria, USA, Cuba, Ukraine, Japan). In 2013, released by For Tune Records, his first mono­graph­ic album PLANETONY appeared, and his sec­ond mono­graph­ic album “Cel­lo Works” was released by DUX, fol­lowed in 2025 by “Pas­ja” released by Requiem Records. He is a mem­ber of the Pol­ish Com­posers’ Union and the Pol­ish Allot­ment Gar­den­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion. He is the lau­re­ate of many com­po­si­tion com­pe­ti­tions, a grant recip­i­ent of the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, the Mar­shal of Low­er Sile­sia and the Pres­i­dent of the City of Wrocław. He con­sults his com­po­si­tions with the wind, the sun and his daugh­ters: Roza­lia, Aure­lia and Laura.

Tickets

30 PLN