Zarysy

This is a beau­ti­ful and deeply inspir­ing sto­ry about music, roots and an endur­ing bond with nature and one’s homeland.

The album Zarysy seems to be not only a musi­cal work, but also a per­son­al jour­ney by Hele­na Sish­nu Matuszews­ka — a sen­si­tive artist who has inter­wo­ven her life and cre­ative work with high­land tra­di­tion, in which both the past and mod­ern inter­pre­ta­tions are reflected.

The album descrip­tion evokes a land­scape drawn from child­hood mem­o­ries — full of mists, the echo of forests and the mur­mur of mead­ows. It is a sto­ry about returns and about how old melodies can speak anew when inter­pret­ed by a mature artist draw­ing on a rich store of emo­tions and experiences.

Sish­nu, togeth­er with Mar­ta Piórkows­ka and Paweł Zalews­ki, revives the spir­it of the first high­land bands, draw­ing on the lega­cy of Bar­tuś Obrochta. Instead of the clas­si­cal set of prym, sekund and bass­es, the instru­men­ta­tion here is more refined — appear­ing are, among oth­ers, the suka bił­go­ra­js­ka, złób­co­ki d’amore and vio­la da gam­ba. These old, for­got­ten instru­ments car­ry an archa­ic sound which, com­bined with the cre­ators’ mod­ern approach, forms a fas­ci­nat­ing mosa­ic of sounds.

What is par­tic­u­lar­ly inspir­ing in Sish­nu’s sto­ry is her abil­i­ty to com­bine the old with the con­tem­po­rary. Like Obrochta, Sish­nu exper­i­ments with sound and instru­men­ta­tion, draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from the tra­di­tion­al melodies of Spisz, Orawa and Pod­hale. Obrochta’s pio­neer­ing approach of blend­ing old and new was appre­ci­at­ed by com­posers, clas­si­cal musi­cians and ethno­g­ra­phers of the time. His melodies were writ­ten down at the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry by Stanisław Mier­czyńs­ki. “Muzy­ka Pod­ha­la” opens with a fore­word by Karol Szy­manows­ki. It is pre­cise­ly the echoes of these melodies, along­side the refrains heard in child­hood from the fields, the calls from the peaks, the every­day singing in the court­yards, that inspired the cre­ation of Sish­nu’s orig­i­nal compositions.

Hele­na Sish­nu Matuszews­ka is an excep­tion­al artist who in her work reach­es back to her roots in order to give them a mod­ern dimen­sion. Her pas­sion for archa­ic instru­ments, such as the suka bił­go­ra­js­ka, com­bined with a jour­ney through var­i­ous musi­cal cul­tures, tes­ti­fies to her deep sen­si­tiv­i­ty and open­ness to a diver­si­ty of sounds. The fact that she lives in a hun­dred-year-old wood­en house in Spisz, cre­at­ing in the midst of nature, per­fect­ly har­mo­nizes with her artis­tic world.

This album is cer­tain­ly some­thing more than just music.

It is a trib­ute to mem­o­ry, to silence and to the voice of nature. It is also a space for reflec­tion and a jour­ney into the recess­es of one’s own mem­o­ries. Thanks to the per­form­ers’ use of such unique instru­ments, Zarysy offers some­thing authen­ti­cal­ly excep­tion­al — a musi­cal tale of long­ing, of returns and of the time­less mag­ic of the mountains.

Per­form­ers:

Hele­na Sish­nu Matuszews­ka suka bił­go­ra­js­ka, złób­co­ki d’amore, voice

Mar­ta Piórkows­ka vio­la d’amore, złóbcoki

Paweł Zalews­ki vio­la da gamba

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 Dru­gi Pro­gram Pol­skiego Radia.

More about the artist:

Hele­na SISHNU Matuszews­ka is a world music com­pos­er, mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist, poet and lyri­cist. She is co-founder of the ensem­bles Same Suki, Mehe­he, InFi­delis and Naneli Lale. She received her musi­cal edu­ca­tion as a clas­si­cal vio­lin­ist at the Fry­deryk Chopin Uni­ver­si­ty of Music in War­saw, but after grad­u­at­ing decid­ed to set out into the world of eth­nic and folk music.

She spe­cial­izes in play­ing for­got­ten, archa­ic bowed instru­ments, which she inter­prets in a com­plete­ly non-tra­di­tion­al way. She is a musi­cian wan­der­ing with the suka bił­go­ra­js­ka — a tra­di­tion­al Pol­ish knee fid­dle. Her cre­ative work is cap­ti­vat­ing for its col­li­sion and mix­ing of musi­cal cul­tures and sounds, lend­ing her com­po­si­tions a unique character.

Hele­na lives in a hun­dred-year-old wood­en house in Spisz, where she cre­ates her music sur­round­ed by silence and nature. She loves the for­est and close­ness to the nat­ur­al world, which is reflect­ed both in her lifestyle and in her artis­tic explorations.

Tickets

30 PLN