It is not for the first time in the history of music education that artists educated in a classical manner turn to jazz at some point in their mature professional lives. This so happened to the musicians of the Atom String Quartet. When we get to know the biographical notes of its members, it turns out that all of them have a rich career in the world of classical music.
What is more they gained their basic education at departments of classical music in music academies. In 2011, when the musicians had their debut with the album “Fade in”, it was clear that the love towards jazz and experimental music had won. For years of their activity, these “four fiddlers with force holding up the ensemble’s name” (as Jan „Ptaszyn” Wróblewski described them) have been frequent guests of the biggest European music festivals i.a. Berliner Jazztage, Jazz Baltica, Leipziger Jazztage, Festival Veranos de la Villa Madrid, Jazz Jamboree, Ethno Jazz Festival and Solidarity of Arts (Atom have also given concerts at the Berlin Philharmonic together with Leszek Możdżer, Lars Danielsson, Zohar Fresco).
Their latest material, which the artists will present at the Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin, constitutes a monographic concert fully devoted to the art of Zbigniew Seifert. The composer’s pieces had been performed for the first time by Atom at the Summer Jazz Academy in Łódź in 2016. This undertaking, featuring Seifert’s music, has become so popular that they are now promoting an album “Seifert”.
Zbigniew Seifert, who is widely known for his violin virtuosos, is also a composer of original music, which the quartet has treated two-ways – either as improvisation material, or an original Seifert narration arranged for quartet. Thanks to this it has gained a fresh sound spectrum.
The uniqueness of the project by Atom String Quartet is supported by the fact that the artists, without giving up on a typically quartet setting, have reached an unusual fusion of classical sound filled with a new jazzy content. Goethe once said that a string quartet is a discussion of four intelligent persons – so why not be a dialog between four intelligent jazzmen?...
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Mikołaj Rykowski PhD
Musicologist and clarinetist, doctorate, and associate at the Department Music Theory at the Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań. Author of a book and numerous articles devoted to the phenomenon of Harmoniemusik – the 18th-century practice of brass bands. Co-author of the scripts "Speaking concerts" and author of the spoken introductions to philharmonic concerts in Szczecin, Poznań, Bydgoszcz and Łódź.
