LutosAir Quintet & Nate Wooley, Tomasz Żymła
Biography LutosAir Quintet & Nate Wooley, Tomasz Żymła
Nate Wooley
was born in 1974 in Clatskanie, Oregon, a town of 2,000 people in the timber country of the Pacific Northwestern corner of the U.S. He began playing trumpet professionally with his father, a big band saxophonist, at the age of 13. His time in Oregon, a place of relative quiet and slow time reference, instilled in Nate a musical aesthetic that has informed all of his music making for the past 20 years, but in no situation more than his solo trumpet performances.
Trumpeter and composer Nate Wooley has been building the size and scope of this project through numerous iterations over the last decade, incorporating taped sections from previous versions into each successive installment. Last year he released the sixth and most impressive recording. The aim is always the same more or less, constructing a momentous structured improvisation that aspires to an ecstatic climax followed by a cathartic release, and “Seven Storey Mountain” achieves this goal brilliantly. Within the dramatic atmosphere of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Wooley presents the latest version of this epic with a knock-out line-up featuring some of his regular New York cohorts including violinist C. Spencer Yeh, and pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn, with an impressive bunch of European fellow travelers such as pianist Håvard Wiik and drummer Steve Heather. Through a series of time-blocked sequences, the music grows from ambient calm into cycling post-Terry Riley minimalism, careening and building into a dense wall of freely improvised, almost psychedelic mayhem. The piece features several female voices, including section leader Megan Schubert, interpolating the words and melody from the proto-feminist Peggy Seeger song “Reclaim the Night”, and offering the haunting, defiant coda, “You can’t scare me”, borrowed from the Bobbie McGhee folk tune “Union Maid”.
Tomasz Żymła
graduated Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice (Poland) in 2010. After that he came to the Netherlands to study bass clarinet at the Royal Conservatory The Hague. In 2010 he won Grand Prix in soloist category the Competition in Szczecin (Poland). He played as a guest player in Asko / Schönberg Ensemble, Orkest van het Oosten, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and many other Polish Orchestras. Since 2008 Tomasz is a principal clarinetist of the New Music Orchestra in Poland. During his Master studies, he participated in Orchestra Master program as clarinetist in Residentie Orkest, which is part of his study specialization. He gratuated in May 2013. Interested in all kind of music, Tom is playing since 2013, in the multi-style folk band, La Mythomanie.
LutosAir Quintet
Founded in 2013 on the centenary of Witold Lutosławski’s birth, LutosAir Quintet is one of the National Forum of Music resident ensembles. It is made up of the soloists of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic: Jan Krzeszowiec, Wojciech Merena, Maciej Dobosz, Alicja Kieruzalska and Mateusz Feliński. At present LutosAir Quintet is one of the most active and versatile Polish wind ensembles. It has performed at the most important Polish festivals, such as the Warsaw Autumn, Wratislavia Cantans, Music on the Heights in Zakopane, Jazztopad, Poznań Music Spring, HMG Festival, and La Folle Journée (Warsaw National Opera). The LutosAir Quintet has also performed in England, Germany, Egypt (Cairo, Alexandria Library), and Denmark during Rudersdal Sommerkoncerter and Bornholms Musikfestival.
Recent highlights in the LutosAir Quintet history were concerts with the Wayne Shorter Quartet bringing together extraordinary jazz players (Wayne Shorter, John Patitucci, Brian Blade, and Danilo Pérez). During Jazztopad Festival and London Jazz Festival, both ensembles performed Wayne Shorter’s The Unfolding written specially for this occasion. The quintet has also collaborated with excellent Polish musicians: Piotr Sałajczyk, Maciej Frąckiewicz, and the Lutosławski Quartet. LutosAir Quintet’s repertoire includes, inter alia, new music. It also focuses on promoting Polish music. The quintet has performed several lesser-known pieces in the international repertoire and participated in world premieres of several works by Polish composers, such as Wojtek Blecharz, Paweł Hendrich, Nikolet Burzyńska, Marcin Stańczyk and Mikołaj Majkusiak. Rafał Augustyn dedicated his Rondeau to LutosAir Quintet.