Music
in Bydgoszcz

Music and related institutions build Bydgoszcz’s brand as a city teeming with culture. That’s why the city is investing in it with vigor. As many as three multi-million-dollar investments – all related to music – will begin soon.

The Nova Opera House will be expanded by the so-called fourth circle, thereby gaining, among other things, a new chamber music hall with an audience of nearly 500 seats and a cinema hall. The Pomeranian Philharmonic is also preparing to expand. The existing building will be connected to a new one, which will include a small concert hall with an auditorium of at least 350 seats, a stage for a 30-member orchestra and a 30-member choir.

The F. Nowowiejski Academy of Music, on the other hand, will gain a new campus – a musical university town will be built on 3 hectares, including four concert halls: symphonic, chamber, theater-opera and organ, as well as teaching rooms and a student house.

Bydgoszcz’s cultural potential is sizable and still developing. The concert hall of the I.J. Paderewski Pomeranian Philharmonic is shrouded in fame – considered by many to be one of the best in Europe in terms of acoustics. It is here that one of the more prestigious piano competitions in Poland – the I.J. Paderewski International Piano Competition – takes place. In turn, the Opera Nova building, located on the banks of the Brda River, attracts the best soloists and musicians, and the Bydgoszcz Opera Festival is a globally recognized brand and at the same time Poland’s largest review of various musical genres in opera, operetta, musical and ballet. Every year, the most interesting theaters and ensembles from around the world present themselves on the stage of Opera Nova.

Bydgoszcz is a city that understands how important it is to protect the climate, which is why it takes care of pro-environmental solutions in its activities. Municipal investments are implemented using renewable energy sources, including photovoltaic panels (such as the new Astoria Olympic swimming pool). On the roofs of city buildings, including nurseries, kindergartens and sports facilities, energy is also obtained from the sun.

In the field of culture, the idea of sustainability and caring for the climate is clearly visible. And especially in the field of music. A leader in combining musical culture and ecology is the Municipal Cultural Center in Bydgoszcz.

The ICC undertakes a number of initiatives promoting an ecological lifestyle: among others, the Children’s Recycling Orchestra was established at the institution, which, under the guidance of percussionist Jacek Kwaśniak, plays concerts on percussion instruments made from waste. The summer of 2021 in Bydgoszcz was marked by the Green Zones of Culture created by the ICC, where sustainability and ecology are promoted at cultural events (including through concerts by the Orchestra on a Big Bike – a six-person band that plays by riding a six-person unicycle, workshops on creating instruments from recycled materials, competitions for children, etc.).

The ICC’s flagship project is also the Spring Festivals, four major events during the spring season, which are largely guided by the idea of caring for nature. Of particular note are: ‍

DRUMS FUSION International Festival of Rhythm and Percussion Art – is the largest festival dedicated to percussion art in Poland. It has hosted such celebrities as Dave Lombardo, Cindy Blackman Santana, Finnish Apocalyptica, jazz virtuoso Jan Garbarek and many others. The festival also hosts the International Percussion Forum, where virtuosos of the instrument conduct workshops for professionals and amateurs. Starting in 2021, DRUMS FUSION plays decidedly in an eco rhythm – the idea followed by the festival’s framework is to promote an ecological lifestyle with care for nature. Musical events were combined with ecological workshops, performances by the Children’s Recycling Orchestra (playing percussion instruments self-made from waste), concerts by the BIG BIKE ORCHESTRA promoting the bicycle as a means of transportation. It is also two Polish Records broken (2022 and 2023) in the category of “the most people playing recycled instruments.” DRUMS FUSION was also the first festival in Bydgoszcz to introduce an eco-friendly, reusable festival cup‍.

ETHNIESY Festival of Traditional and Folk Music – one of the largest festivals in Poland dedicated to folk music in the broadest sense. But it’s not just about music – through the primal power of sound you can see a world stripped of glitz and artificiality. Ethniesy is an affirmation of life, a turn to roots, tradition and to the natural rhythm of nature. The theme of the 2021 event is “NATURE IS THE NEW CULTURE.”

A musical-architectural pearl on the map of Bydgoszcz is the Music District. The urban shape of this part of the city was created at the turn of the 20th century and referred to the concept of Ebenezer Howard’s “garden city,” in which loose buildings away from the strict center meet with ubiquitous greenery.

Bydgoszcz Music District is located in the eastern part of Downtown – this is where cultural facilities, especially music institutions, have been concentrated: Pomeranian Philharmonic, Academy of Music, Music School Complex, but also H. Konieczka Polish Theater and Polish Radio Pomerania and Kuyavia. The central point of the District is the Jan Kochanowski Park, which contains monuments to composers and virtuosos of classical music, as well as several monuments, including the Luczniczka monument, which is a symbol of Bydgoszcz. All around you can admire the beautiful pre-war architecture of the townhouses, including the Bydgoszcz Art Nouveau. The musical “dot over the i” of this part of the city is the multimedia musical fountain, which with its play of lights and sounds attracts crowds during evening shows.

The Mózg music club is known to anyone who appreciates communing with music. It is an iconic place on the map of Bydgoszcz, created in March 1994 by a group of musicians and visual artists led by drummer Jacek Majewski, who died in 2005, and bassist Slawek Janicki, who runs Mózg to this day.

In the 1990s Brain became the main center of a new trend in music called “yass”, and created by musicians from Gdansk and Bydgoszcz. The leaders of “yass” are considered to be: Jerzy Mazzoll, Ryszard Tymon Tymanski, Mikołaj Trzaska and Tomasz Gwinciński, however, the scene was created by many other artists, which include: Joanna Charchan, Anna Lasocka, Tomasz St. Hesse, Jacek Buhl, Jarek Majewski, Olgierd Walicki, Jacek Olter, Piotr Pawlak, Jacek Majewski, Slawek Janicki, Renata Suchodolska, Rafal Gorzycki.

The first yass album is considered to be, released in 1992, the CD “Dances of Bydgoszcz” by the group Trytony, which was reissued on vinyl in November 2022.
Klub Mózg was the main center of the yass trend, with time – even a mecca for artists who created this type of music. Some of the best-known yass formations include Love, Tritons, Loskot or Mazzoll & Arhythmic Perfection, Pieces of Brain.

The Brain was the second music center in Bydgoszcz after the Trytony club, founded by the same group of people at 3 Kręta Street, after the systemic transformation. And it is another example demonstrating how culture flourished and continues to flourish on the grounds of the city’s industrial history. After all, the cult club is headquartered in a building at 10 Gdanska Street, which before the war housed a soap factory, and after the war – a film projector repair plant. Currently, the building houses a concert hall, an exhibition hall, a bar, rehearsal rooms, studios, a recording studio and residency apartments.

Brain serves as a multidisciplinary art center, bringing together multiple generations of artists and audiences, with more than 100 projects a year involving artists from many countries around the world. Newcomers and younger generations find their work and presentation space at Brain. From 2014 to 2017, Brain was also headquartered at the Powszechny Theater in Warsaw. The club is formally managed by the Brain Foundation – the Foundation for Contemporary Music and Interdisciplinary Forms, whose chairman is Slawek Janicki.

But Brain and yass are not everything. For nearly 40 years, the alternative scene in Bydgoszcz has played an important role in the domestic music market. Beginning with the successes on the Jarocin scene (Abaddon, Variete), through the 1990s and early 2000s with bands such as Something Like Elvis and 3moonboys, to the numerous formations associated with “Polityka’s” Passport winner Kuba Ziolek (Alameda, Old River and others).

Also, new musical phenomena distinguish Bydgoszcz on the national scene – including rap, whose main representative is Bisz. His musical collaborations put the Bydgoszcz rap scene at the top of the rankings.

Being a pioneer in signing the Pact for Culture obliges. So does the developed long-term Strategy for Culture (undergoing an update in 2023) and the existing potential of water in the city, going hand in hand with industrial and cultural heritage.

Bydgoszcz wants to be and is a city where sustainable development goes hand in hand with the well-being of its residents. And economic development with cultural development. This is also evidenced by the fact that Bydgoszcz is the first city in Poland to adopt the provisions of Agenda 21 for Culture, an international document that provides guidance and key guidelines for creating a social cultural policy in the city.