UrbSymphony – Michał Urbaniak

Jazz is my life… The violin is my wife, and the saxophone – my mistress. Fusion, reggae, samba, salsa, hip-hop, rap, R&B – are all jazz to me. I think God created music, and people divided it into categories – confesses Michał Urbaniak.

An outstanding jazzman with a classical education, has been trying all his life to mould the categories back together. The best example of these attempts is his project ‘UrbSymphony’, which is comprised of two parts ‘Sketches of Poland’ and ‘Sketches of Manhattan’. This composition was first performed in 1995 at the Bronisław Huberman Philharmonic in Częstowchowa. Over the 20 years of its existence, it has been presented all over the world, yet in accordance with the artist’s motto: ‘you need to move forward’, so it has been modified, adjusted to match current affairs and his new fascinations.

This unique project of Michał Urbaniak is all about the merger of elements of various seemingly distant musical genres, classical music, jazz, folk and hip-hop. The artist associates the sound and characters of Polish folk music, oberek, mazurek for example, with the modern drive and groove of jazz. At the Philharmonic in Szczecin a new edition of this musical project will be presented. Which stories will be told to us this time, only Michał Urbaniak knows.