Piotr Kurek is a Warsaw-based musician, multi-instrumentalist and composer. Drawing on a diversity of approaches and influences, he creates hypnotic, fantastical music and occasionally composes for film and theatre. Known to work as a solo musician, but also as part of various collaborations (most recently Piętnastka with Hubert Zemler), he has released music on Edições CN, Mondoj, Hands In The Dark, Black Sweat Records, Dunno, Sangoplasmo and other labels.
His latest album World Speaks for Edições CN (releasing in February 2022) is an album of illusory sensations. Overlapping voices, droning organs and reed solos inspired by imagined landscapes combine to entrancing effect. Whereas previously his work was described as “modern, cubic and art brut”, here it takes a more mystical, sacred turn. Inspired by found photographs and romantic landscape paintings, Piotr Kurek composed and arranged these pieces using various vocal sample banks, mimicking the feeling the memories of the images evoked in his mind. Introspective, yet still gently whimsical, it's a wonderful next step in Kurek's creative journey.
Piotr Kurek has performed extensively, presenting his work at numerous music festivals like Unsound, CTM, OFF, TodaysArt and UH Fest, as well as participating in extensive tours in Poland and abroad. He is an alumni of SHAPE platform and OneBeat by Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation. In recent years, he was also invited to residencies at EMS in Stockholm, Sweden and Gyeonggi Creation Center in Ansan, South Korea.
He has scored both short and feature length films, including Sebastian Mihăilescu "Mammalia" (Berlinale 2023), Magnus von Horn’s “Sweat” (Cannes Official Selection 2020). He is a regular collaborator of an acclaimed Polish theatre director Grzegorz Jarzyna from TR Warszawa, as well as Tian Gebing from Beijing’s Paper Tiger Theatre Studio. Among his recent productions are Jarzyna’s "Solaris 4” which opened the New Stage of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, as well as Tian Gebing's "Heart Chamber Fragment" for Münchner Kammerspiele. Music from his various theatre productions was collected into a release titled “A Sacrifice Shall Be Made / All The Wicked Scenes” released by Warsaw imprint Mondoj in 2020.
selected features & reviews:
The Vinyl Factory February 2022
interviews
