Wargin

Performers:

Varso­via Æris sax­o­phones

Mateusz Ryczek elec­tron­ics 

Production:

pro­gramme con­cept: Varso­via Æris, Mateusz Ryczek
text: Varso­via Æris, Mateusz Ryczek          
pro­duc­tion: Olga Pasek
visu­al iden­ti­ty: Alek­san­dra Ołdak, Her­bert Raniszewski

Hash­tag Lab Con­tem­po­rary Music Space is co-fund­ed by the City of War­saw.
The media patron of the Hash­tag Lab Con­tem­po­rary Music Space is POLMIC​.PL. and Dwój­ka Pol­skie Radio.

The work “War­gin” was com­posed as part of an MKiDN Cre­ative Scholarship

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

Mateusz Ryczek (1986) – com­pos­er. In 2011 he grad­u­at­ed with dis­tinc­tion from the Music Acad­e­my in Wrocław under the direc­tion of Graży­na Pstrokońs­ka-Nawratil (com­po­si­tion), Cezary Duch­nows­ki (com­put­er com­po­si­tion) and Zbig­niew Kar­nec­ki (the­atre and film music). In 2019 he was award­ed a doc­tor­ate in musi­cal arts (doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion enti­tled “The Emer­gence of Pitch Algo­rithms Based on the Cel­lo Con­cer­to Zjawy”).

Works by Mateusz Ryczek have been per­formed many times both in Poland and abroad (Ger­many, Spain, Por­tu­gal, Bel­gium, Chi­na, Turkey, Italy, Hun­gary, Czech Repub­lic, Unit­ed King­dom, Belarus, Rus­sia, Switzer­land, Aus­tria, USA, Cuba, Ukraine, Japan). In 2013 his first mono­graph­ic album PLANETONY was released by For Tune Records, and a sec­ond mono­graph­ic album “Cel­lo Works” was released by DUX; in 2025 “Pas­ja” was released by Requiem Records.

A mem­ber of the Pol­ish Com­posers’ Union and the Pol­ish Allot­ment Hold­ers’ Association. 

He is the recip­i­ent of numer­ous com­po­si­tion prizes and has held schol­ar­ships from the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, the Mar­shal of Low­er Sile­sia, and the May­or of Wrocław. He dis­cuss­es his com­po­si­tions with the wind, the sun and his daugh­ters: Roza­lia, Aure­lia and Laura. 

Varso­via Æris aka Alic­ja Wołyńczyk-Raniszewska

A sax­o­phon­ist whose par­tic­u­lar areas of activ­i­ty are con­tem­po­rary music, cham­ber music and ped­a­gogy. In 2023 she pub­lished the com­pendi­um “Con­tem­po­rary Sax­o­phone Tech­niques for Com­posers”. Each year, as soloist, in cham­ber for­ma­tions and with orches­tras, she gives world pre­mieres — most recent­ly of works by Mihalis Trav­los, Anna Igna­tow­icz-Glińs­ka, Aldona Nawroc­ka, Anna Maria Huszcza, Paweł Kwapińs­ki, Łukasz Gody­la, Alic­ja Gronau…

She is fas­ci­nat­ed by col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er artists (instru­men­tal­ists, painters, dancers, com­posers, con­duc­tors) and the influ­ence they have on her inter­pre­ta­tions and the over­all shape of a project. Cre­at­ing new val­ue — a kind of “inter­val” or “con­so­nance” born from the ener­gy, inter­pre­ta­tions and expe­ri­ences of all par­tic­i­pants — is some­thing extra­or­di­nary and unique. Yet in the longer term it also affects knowl­edge (in an epis­te­mo­log­i­cal sense), teach­ing one to dis­tin­guish “self” ver­sus “non-self”, and to seek more objec­tive truths in music.

That is why the sax­o­phon­ist leads sev­er­al projects of which she is the orig­i­na­tor and spir­i­tus movens, such as Flas­si­co, Dźwię­ki Powi­etrza, Wołyńczyk/Kopacka/Gałuszka trio, Tre­Fonie, Tryp­tyk Lemows­ki and Aus­tria meets Poland. 

As a soloist she has appeared with l’Har­monie des Lam­bres in France under P. Cami­er (2016), at the Nation­al Phil­har­mon­ic with the Sin­fo­nia Viva orches­tra under T. Radzi­wonow­icz (2012), and with the AMFC wind orches­tra under G. Mie­limą­ka (2007).

Solo, in cham­ber ensem­bles and with orches­tras she has per­formed at numer­ous fes­ti­vals, includ­ing Nowa Muzy­ka w Starym Ratuszu, Fes­ti­val Fran­co-Polon­ais (Douai, France), Le Print­emps de Musique d’Escaut (Valen­ci­ennes, France), Les Folles Journées (Nantes, War­saw), Musi­ca Poloni­ca Nova, the World Sax­o­phone Con­gress (Stras­bourg, Ljubl­jana), Warsza­wska Jesień, Sacrum-Pro­fanum, etc.

She rep­re­sent­ed Poland in the Euro­pean Sax­o­phone Ensem­ble (Cul­tur­al Ambas­sador of the Euro­pean Union). For many years she col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Cham­ber Con­cert Series of the Nation­al Phil­har­mon­ic. Togeth­er with Doro­ta Sam­sel she formed the duo Ars Duo, with which she released the album Sax­o­phone Con­ver­sa­tions (DUX, 2014); she has also col­lab­o­rat­ed with the ensem­bles Cafe Cor­tao, Fla­men­cos and One More Time; and co-found­ed sax­o­phone quar­tets Akademia (with Prof. P. Gus­nar), A4 (with Dr A. Mleczko) and Saxmis­ja. She has worked with the orches­tras of the Nation­al Phil­har­mon­ic, Sin­fo­nia Varso­via, the Pol­ish Radio Orches­tra and Sin­fo­nia Iuven­tus. She par­tic­i­pat­ed in the project Rytułały – MimOp­ery at the War­saw Cham­ber Opera (2015).

For 10 years she per­formed in Krzysztof War­likowski’s pro­duc­tion Poskromie­nie Złośni­cy, play­ing the stage sax­o­phone part in music by Paweł Myki­etyn (Teatr Dra­maty­czny, War­saw, 1998–2008).

She is a mem­ber of SPAM and PTMW. Alic­ja Wołyńczyk is an artist endorsed by Buf­fet Senzo.

More: alic​ja​wolynczyk​.com

WORK DESCRIPTIONS…….

Mateusz Ryczek War­gin* (2025) for soprano/alto/tenor sax­o­phone, elec­tron­ics and video 

The work is inspired by the Slav­ic leg­end of the king of cats, the demon­ic War­gin, with his smooth, gleam­ing black fur. War­gin was larg­er than oth­er cats, and fire burned in his eyes. The cat would cun­ning­ly ingra­ti­ate him­self with peo­ple. Yet those he chose grad­u­al­ly lost their minds — for through the cat’s purring, a swarm of wasps would in time appear in their heads, caus­ing them to die in ter­ri­ble agony.
The com­po­si­tion is ded­i­cat­ed to Alic­ja Wołyńczyk-Raniszews­ka and also exists in an inter­ac­tive ver­sion for VR gog­gles, for indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ence.
The work War­gin was cre­at­ed as part of the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture’s Cre­ative Schol­ar­ship 2025

Mateusz Ryczek Sagit­tar­ius A (2011) for alto sax­o­phone and electronics

Sagit­tar­ius A is: a com­plex radio source at the cen­tre of the Milky Way, which con­tains the super­mas­sive black hole Sagit­tar­ius A* (Sgr A*). Sgr A* has a mass approx­i­mate­ly 4.3 mil­lion times that of the Sun and is hid­den behind clouds of cos­mic dust (after Wikipedia).
Anna Huszcza Aby­Sus (2013) for tenor/soprano sax­o­phone and electronics

The work is inspired by the Kurpie folk melody “Zaświeć miesiądzu”. Sung frag­ments of it can be heard in the elec­tron­ics lay­er. The word “aby­sus” itself means abyss, depth.  The work is ded­i­cat­ed to Paweł Gusnar. 

Elż­bi­eta Siko­ra Lisboa.Tramway 28: hom­mage a Fer­nan­do Pes­soa (1998) for soprano/alto sax­o­phone and electronics

The work was cre­at­ed fol­low­ing the com­poser’s jour­ney to Lis­bon in search of traces of the extra­or­di­nary writer Fer­nan­do Pes­soa. Lis­boa con­sists of four move­ments that form a kind of jour­ney, and the street sounds cap­tured in the elec­tron­ics lay­er come from the city of Lis­bon. The work is ded­i­cat­ed to Daniel Kientzy. 

The tit­u­lar Fer­nan­do Pes­soa is regard­ed as the great­est Por­tuguese poet of the 20th cen­tu­ry. He is also the author of a guide to Lisbon.

Paweł Myki­etyn Sonati­na fur Ali­na (1994) for alto sax­o­phone and electronics

This short, three-move­ment work is inspired by Baroque music and can be clas­si­fied with­in the cur­rent of min­i­mal music. Ded­i­cat­ed to Ali­na Mleczko.

Jacek Grudzień Drze­wa

The sin­gle-move­ment, melan­cholic work “Drze­wa” by Jacek Grudzień is a piece inspired by the win­ter land­scape of Wilanów-Morysinek, where along a long avenue, against the night sky, the crowns of old wil­lows cre­ate an extra­or­di­nary and nos­tal­gic land­scape.” (after PWM)