About the project
In between Norway & Poland / CULTURE is a 2-year project that will take place between October 2021 and October 2023 in Warsaw, Lublin, Wrocław, Krakow and Oslo. The project will present 39 events (including several world premieres), with the participation of over 70 artists, lecturers, curators and specialists.
The project is the result of cooperation between 5 organizations, including Norwegian: Oslo Jazz Festival, nyMusikk and Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria, as well as Polish ones – Centre for Intercultural Creative Initiatives “Rozdroże”, organizer of KODY Festival (Lublin) and Avant Art Foundation, organizer of Avant Art Festival Wrocław and Warsaw. The events will take place during selected Polish and Norwegian festivals. Each of the cities will present a different programme, adjusted to the orders and specifics of each event. The main goal is to present Polish and Norwegian new music, but also to cooperate and create new projects, based on collaboration and joint work of Polish and Norwegian musicians and artists.
The programme of the entire project consists of two parts – artistic and educational – largely based on various aspects and areas related to graphic scores – a musical notation which is a kind of graphic composition. It is thanks to the scores that the programme of the entire project has gained an interdisciplinary character, in between – at the junction of music and visual arts, which determines the uniqueness of the project on a European scale. Composers who created graphic scores included Krzysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutosławski and Norway’s Arne Nordheim.
The artistic part of the project assumes not only the production and realization of events, but above all the creation of new ensembles called Hidros 9 and Ensemble E, which will perform compositions commissioned by Mats Gustafsson for the Avant Art Foundation and thus become the programmatic axis of the entire project. The curators, Mats Gustafsson (composer and chief curator) and Kostas Georgakopulos (responsible for the Polish line-ups of Hidros 9 and Ensemble E), have invited 25 renowned and experienced European musicians, mainly Norwegian and Polish, to perform these pieces. Due to the premiere character of the events, the selection and number of artists, as well as the use of graphic scores, these performances should become one of the most important events in post jazz and experimental music on a European scale. Graphic scores are the common denominator of the entire project, they will not only be the subject of exhibitions and concerts, but will also be used in the educational part, dedicated both to professional musicians and school children and youth.
In 2023, the 16th edition of Avant Art Festival in Wrocław, devoted to Norwegian music, will be included in the In between Norway and Poland / CULTURE programme. The festival programme will include concerts by several Norwegian artists connected with the avant-garde and experimental scene in this country. The project will be a continuation of review of Norwegian culture, carried out within Avant Art Festival in Wroclaw in 2010.
The educational part of the project consists of 4 workshop activities in the field of graphic scores, including a course for musicians, classes for children and school youth, workshops for children/adolescents from Ukraine and the realisation of Paweł Romańczuk’s project Different Lines, dedicated to blind and deaf persons. The main idea of this activity is to create graphic scores by blind and deaf people and their sound interpretation performed by improvising musicians.
The project In Between Norway & Poland / Culture is financed by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the Norwegian and EEA Funds from 2014 to 2021 (The Culture Programme, Activity 2 “Improving access to culture and the arts”).
For more information about the Norwegian and EEA Funds:
Avant Art Foundation plans to continue the concerts of Hidros 9 and Ensemble E ensembles after 2023 as part of the newly established international platform.
Team In Between Norway & Poland / CULTURE:
Kostas Georgakopulos / artistic director of the project, president of the board of the Avant Art Foundation
Grzegorz Paluch / main coordinator of the project
Katarzyna Gołecka / main coordinator of Avant Art Foundation
Mats Gustafsson / main curator of the project