August 27th, Friday 8:30pm / the tower of St. Catherine’s Church /

New Sounds for Bells and Strings – closing concert

NeoQuartet /Gdańsk/:

Karolina Piątkowska-Nowicka, Paweł Kapica – violin
Michał Markiewicz – viola
Krzysztof Pawłowski – cello

Paul Maassen /carillon – Netherlands/

Daan Manneke (*1933)
Antwerpse Toccata 

Federico Mompou (1893-1987)

Musica Callada (Cicha muzyka, opr. P. Maassen):
– Angelico
– Cancion y Danza IX 
– V Prelude
– Cancion y Danza XII 

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Taniec śniegu z Kącika dziecięcego (opr. P. Maassen) 

Jacobus Aloisius Maassen (1887-1946)
Scherzo 

Improwizacje / jazz: 

Frank Zappa (1940-1993) 

Peaches and Regalia
Uncle Meat 

Paul Maassen (*1981)

Juno
Pluto
Epilogue 

NEOQUARTET

is Polish string quartet focused on performing contemporary classical music. 

Karolina Piątkowska-Nowicka – 1st Violin, Paweł Kapica – 2nd Violin, Michał Markiewicz – Viola, Krzysztof Pawłowski – Cello very often combine contemporary classical music with visual arts, modern dance, and electronics.

Quartet`s aim is to collaborate with contemporary composers and to make their music familiar to wider audience.
NeoQuartet is one of the most active European ensembles specializing in new music. It played numerous concerts on most renown festivals throughout Europe, China, South Korea, Japan, and USA.

The ensemble recorded so far 10 CDs for Polish, German, Greek and American labels.

NeoQuartet is the winner of Pomeranian Art Award 2018 and was nominated to other prestigious Polish awards: Sztorm Roku, and Fryderyk (Polish Grammy Award).

Since 2017, NeoQuartet started also to play on electric instruments with synthesizers and looper stations. This project is called Neo Electric Quartet – the world’s only electric string quartet performing new music.
NeoQuartet organizes NeoArte Synthesizer of Arts Festival established in 2012 and held each year in Gdansk.
The main idea of this annual event is to popularize the contemporary classical music among wide range of audience.
For this festival, renowned composers, artists and young talented musicians meet together to provide a new musical perspective of our times. The first edition of the New Music Spectrum took place in October 2012 in Gdansk, Poland.
Since 2013, festival’s formula has been gradually expanded incorporating workshops for composers, workshops for contemporary improvisation and workshops for children.

NeoArte – association established by NeoQuartet, regularly commissions works by Polish and foreign composers.
The list of composers who dedicated their compositions to NeoQuartet already includes:
Slawomir Kupczak, Jakub Polaczyk, Bohdan Sehin, Maxim Kolomiiets, Aleksander Kosciow, Oleksij Shmurak, Jerzy Kornowicz, Agnieszka Stulginska, Marek Czerniewicz, Dariusz Przybylski, Dai Bo, Gabriel Paiuk, Grzegorz Pieniek, Kamil Kosecki, Piotr Peszat, Rafał Zapała, Peter Machajdik, Mart-Matis Lill, Anna Huuskonen, Adam Vilagi, Peter Helmut Lang, Art – Oliver Simon and Simon Christensen.

PAUL MASSEN

is city carillonneur of Breda, and performs as such on the carillons of the Great Tower and Heuvelcarillon. He is the 4th generation city carillonneurs in in his family, since his great-grandfather started in Breda in 1923. 

First educated as a jazz pianist at Rotterdam conservatory, he got his Masters Degree in piano and carillon at the Utrecht Conservatory in 2009. With his specific approach as a jazz musician, he explores new ways in carillon music, and gives concerts in the Netherlands and abroad. Besides carillonneur, he is musical director in the musical theatre, currently for the Broadway production “Matilda the musical” and toured in the Netherlands with shows like “Hello! Dolly”, “Sweeney Todd” and “The Color Purple”. As a jazz pianist, he performs with the Utrecht based collective “Jazz Archipel”.