Janusz Prusinowski Kompania (POL)
Saturday, September 23, 2023 / 8 p.m.
Jewish Cultural Center „Oneg Šabat” (Jevrejska 16)
The concert is organized with the support of the Sounds of Europe, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Ministry of Culture, and the City of Belgrade.
Janusz Prusinowski (promo photo)
JANUSZ PRUSINOWSKI KOMPANIA is a distinguished group of musicians from Poland who continue the tradition of village masters and personal role models in the process of developing performance technique and style. At the same time, they are a kind of avant-garde band with their own, characteristic sound and language of improvisation, combining music and dance, archaic and modern, country melodies and hints of Chopin’s rubato, love for improvisation close to jazz and the expressiveness of rock music.
Concerts and tours of the Janusz Prusinowski Compania usually include educational activities, both in Poland and abroad, as the band also conducts various music and dance workshops, which have proven to be the starting point for many young interpreters of Polish traditional music.
The unique style of the ensemble is the result of their attempt to find new ways of interpreting the most important elements of rural music from central Poland, bringing the mazurka – sung, played, danced and improvised live – closer to the people of this era. In addition to concerts, Janusz with his Compania (the line-up evolved from the Janusz Prusinowski Trio) performs at village celebrations and in city dance clubs. In the period between 2008 and 2012, the group had a huge number of performances in Europe, Asia, Canada and the USA, and in 2012 they held a showcase performance at WOMEX in Thessaloniki.
In addition to independent concerts, the Compania participates in countless artistic projects, collaborating with a variety of artists. So far they have released four albums: „Mazurki” (2008), „Serce” (2010), „Knee-deep in Heaven” (2013) and „Po Śladach/In the footsteps” (2019).
This is their premiere concert appearance in Serbia. Thanks to the cooperation that, through the Sounds of Europe project, the Todo Mundo festival (Ring Ring Association) achieved with the Grocka Culture Center, Janusz Prusinowski Kompania will have one gig before the Belgrade concert – in the courtyard of the Rančić family house in Grocka, on September 22, starting at 20 p.m.
