This week’s theme is clearly “duets”. In short: On Friday I will play at Opole Festival with the remaining line-up of the legendary band Skaldowie. And on Saturday the live album “Ondinata. Live for Ondine” premieres – where I’d joined forces with Julia Marcell, amongs others.
1.
June 1st marks the premiere of the upcoming concert album “Ondinata. Live for Ondine” (here’s a past entry about the original studio album). We recorded the show last year in February, at Centrum Spotkań Kultur i Lublin, and while based on the original album tracks, the show differed in both arrangements and line-up, so I had a chance to pair up with Julia Marcell on the gorgeously sparse “All the Pretty Little Horses” and sing “Kołysanka Oddychanka” by Jacek Cygan and Jerzy Maksymiuk. The duet with Julia is the first single. All the proceeds, as with the previous Ondinata records, go to the Polish CCHS foundation and will help fund the research for the cure to “Ondine’s curse”/CCHS.
“All the Pretty Little Horses”:
https://ondinata.bandcamp.com/track/all-the-pretty-little-horses-live
The whole album (premieres on 1.06.2024):
https://ondinata.bandcamp.com/album/live-for-ondine
2.
I was genuinely honoured to take part in the farewell to the late Jacek Zieliński, a true musical legend, founding member of Skaldowie. During the mass at Cracow’s historic Skałka church I sang “W żółtych płomieniach liści”, accompanied by Andrzej Zieliński and Łukasz Lach – it was originally recorded by Skaldowie with Łucja Prus. I was deeply moved. My sincere thanks to Piotr Metz for suggesting me for this part. Piotr invited me and Łukasz Lach a few days later to the Agnieszka Osiecka Concert Studio, to record the song for the Program 3 (Trójka) listeners. You can year a sliver of the song on social media: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7bXLVLIJGC/
The Festival of Polish Song in Opole will also honour Jacek Zieliński during the “Premieres” concert on Friday, May 31st. I will sing the song once again, accompanied by the remaining line-up of Skaldowie. It will be broadcast by TVP1 at 8 pm.