NOW LAB 2_El-Polska: Stańczyk | Zamilska

Ensemble Musikfabrik is a team for special tasks in the field of contemporary music performance. Since its inception in 1990, it has participated in numerous premieres and interdisciplinary artistic projects combining theater, dance, literature, film and electronic music. According to its name, the group is focused on musical innovations and experiments, especially in the creation and use of new instruments. Since 2013, it has had a complete set of never-before-built instruments designed by Harry Partch, an American composer famous for the construction of new instruments, though inspired by ethnic ones. The hallmark of the ensemble is also brass instruments equipped with double voice spells. On the occasion of marking the centenary of Poland regaining independence, Ensemble Musikfabrik from Cologne will perform a composition commissioned by the Philharmonic in Szczecin. Polish artists Marcin Stańczyk and Natalia Zamilska also participate in this project.

Afterthoughts is a difficult word to translate to Polish, though it is easy to tell that it is about an attempt to look at the last centenary from a certain distance. The theme of the piece directly refers to events, pictures, figures or places that, in my opinion, will stay with us forever. I tried to build the form of the composition in such a way that captures what's essential, elements of reality, without which we could not imagine a reflection on the last hundred years; but at the same time stories less crucial for the course of history, that can be seen as "afterimages" of their time. Marcin Stańczyk

trans. Anna Wójcikowska