Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer

Grzech Piotrowski World Orchestra

Together with the jazz musicians Grzech Piotrowski – saxophones/PL, Lars Andreas Haug – tuba/NO, and Terje Isungset – percussion/NO she has made a music ecological sonic project where the music is like an expedition of a camera eye zooming in on details and separate species in the nature, then out into larger landscapes and biotypes and finally into new species. In this project she also cooperates with other jazz musicians, like: Trygve Seim/ NO, Per Odvar Johannesen /NO, Anders Banke /DK, Knut Aalefjær /NO.

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Grzech Piotrowski WORLD ORCHESTRA is a project spanning many cultures, and it’s all based on the Polish Alchemik String Orchestra in combination with soloists from selected folk cultures from around the globe. The orchestra plays Grzech Piotrowski’s music, which is rooted on Polish music tradition, and incorporates into this, sounds, instruments and melodies from other countries.
Grzech Piotrowski WORLD ORCHESTRA is a project spanning many cultures, and it’s all based on the Polish Alchemik String Orchestra in combination with soloists from selected folk cultures from around the globe. The orchestra plays Grzech Piotrowski’s music, which is rooted on Polish music tradition, and incorporates into this, sounds, instruments and melodies from other countries.
The orchestra has invited soloists playing different folk instruments such as zither, lyre, harp, bandura, cymbals, kuray, kaval and duduk, amongst others.
The orchestra was founded in 2010, and has since then had concerts and tours in Poland, Bulgaria, Germany, Russia and Slovenia. They’ve released two CDs and one DVD:
  1. Grzech Piotrowski World Orchestra (2012) CD, on the record company Agora, which was nominated for the polish Grammy: Polska Akademia Fonograficzna.
  2. Live in Gdansk (2013) DVD/ CD on Universal, also nominated for the same award in the jazz category 2013.

 Some of the solists are:

Marcin Wasilewski, piano (Poland)
Theodosii Spassov, kaval (Bulgaria)
Terje Isungset, percussion,drums (Norway)
Azat Bikchurin, kurai (Bashkiria,Ural)
Bram Stadhouders, guitar (Holland)
Marcel Comendant, cimbalom (Moldavia)
Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer, voice  (Norway)

The Legend Of Popiel And Piast Kolodziej

from the concert Grzech Piotrowski World Orchestra had 13th of august the opening concert at the festival Solidarity of art in the Polish Baltic Philharmonic hall in Gdansk. About 100 musician with soloists from all over Europe and the famous bulgarian choir Angelite was among the participants.

CRITICS:

Music Window to the World

/… / Singing, miming, gesticulation, stage movement as well as costumes of the invited world music guests made us realize in how much restricted music space we live everyday. Into the intricate, multileveled stylistics of Piotrowski’s compositions perfectly inserted themselves jazz musicians, headed by Marcin Wasilewski, who enriched the pieces with element of improvisation. The leader and the author of the project Grzech Piotrowski managed to join in a harmonic way the strengths of so different musicians. In his synthesis of world music, jazz, old and improvised music he demonstrated a lot of creativity. His compositions radiated energy, were lyrical and nostalgic. The pieces might have been very successful as film music for their figurative and mood qualities. The performers were cheered enthusiastically by the thrilled audience /… / /… / The Norwegian delighted the audience with her 5-octave, unusually expressive voice as well as a number of techniques taken from different vocal traditions of the world (especially the Arctic Circle area) like for example the throat singing /… /

Katarzyna Chmurakatarzyna Chmura

Gazeta Wyborcza, 16 august 2011

Energetic World Orchestra concert – Good beginning of Solidarity of Arts Festival

/… / Each of them was a master, each participated in the sound of the whole. The most universal was probably Norwegian vocalist Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer, endowed with a amazing, rich scale of voice and skill of using it to create most unusual sounds /… /

Maja Korbut

Polska Dziennik Bałtycki, 16 August 2011