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Bartek Wąsik

piano

fot. Krzysiek Oleksiak

Pianist, composer and arranger, winner of many national and international competitions, the Fryderyk and the Polityka Passport awards. He is a co-founder and member of the Lutosławski Piano Duo and the Kwadrofonik quartet. Wąsik has performed in Europe, Asia and the Americas. At Carnegie Hall and the Chicago Symphony Hall, he presented his own arrangements of Fryderyk Chopin’s works. At the Berlin Philharmonic, together with the Kwadrofonik, he performed his original arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and songs from the album Folklove – awarded the Folk Phonogram of the Year. His project Nowa Warszawa (recorded with Stanisława Celińska and the Royal String Quartet), featuring 12 newly arranged songs about Warsaw, was enthusiastically received by critics and honored with the Gwarancje Kultury and Wdechy awards. He has collaborated, among others, with Bartek Konopka (the film New Warsaw), Jan Komasa (the show Xenophony), Artur Rojek (Industrial Symphony), Adam Strug (Folk Requiem – awarded the Folk Phonogram of the Year), Katarzyna Nosowska, Ralph Kaminski and Dorota Miśkiewicz (Lutosławski, Tuwim – piosenki nie tylko dla dzieci [Lutosławski, Tuwim – Songs not only for Children] – the album obtained the Gold Record status) and the Stary Theater in Lublin (the project Kocham, Lublin, Szanuję recorded on DVD by FiNA).

In 2019, he was curator of the live concert series “Kultura live” on TVP Kultura and creator of the musical setting for the 8th edition of the National Reading. He hosted the series of programmes on Polish Radio Channel 2. Later that year he finished working on Urlicht – the premiere composition for the Kwadrofonik ensemble, which was premiered at the Warsaw Museum of Polish Jews – Polin, during the 5th edition of the Kwadrofonik Festival. Together with the Lutosławski Piano Duo he made recordings for Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, and on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his ensemble, he played at many European festivals, including the Two Moors (UK), Duetissimo (Belarus), Kontrasty (Ukraine), Sofia Music Weeks (Bulgaria), Prémio Jovens Musicos (Portugal) and in the USA (e.g. at the Kennedy Center in Washington), presenting reconstructions of piano duo recitals Lutosławski / Panufnik from the times of occupied Warsaw.

In 2020, together with Mela Koteluk, he composed songs for the album Astronomia poety. Baczyński [Astronomy of the poet. Baczyński], to the poems of Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, whose premiere took place in July this year. He is also the originator and performer of his own cycle of piano recitals Pianokrąg, which took place in the summer months at the Sculpture Park of the Królikarnia Palace in Warsaw, featuring piano music by Philip Glass, his own arrangements of Radiohead songs and performance of his project Pianokrąg. The concerts were attended by several thousand of audience and broadcast online.