Edition: VII
Bio/Studies
Nikola Kołodziejczyk studied under the guidance of eminent educators – Edward Anthony Partyka (USA), Irena Rolanowska, Andrzej Jagodzinski, Kazimierz Chludek, Emilian Madey, Dariusz Janus, Bogdan Chmura and Wojciech Niedziela. He also owes his musical skills to brief but impactful encounters with such fgures as Vince Mendoza, Ravi Coltrane, Ralph Alessi, Lotte Anker, Maria Schneider, Jim Black and Kurt Elling.
He uses every opportunity to research music — both the latest, and the forgotten — European, Arab, electronic, jazz, baroque and folk.
Nikola is the recipient of the Berklee College of Music World Scholarship Tour, Bosendorfer Solo Piano Competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival 2007 semi-fnalist , winner of a number of awards: Transatlantic Instant Composition Competition HM, Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa, Krokus Jazz Festival, Jazz Juniors, Festival of Jazz Piano „Debiuty”, „Hopes of Warsaw” and others.
Career
Maria Schneider, the winner of two Grammy Awards writes about him: „I am blown away by his music. This music is powerful, creative, intricate, soulful — quite extraordinary. His musical ideas are so original.”
He loves to stay in large groups of people, which probably gave rise to a passion for composing for large ensembles and made him like to ride and wait for Polish trains. Music for Nikola is the search for new answers to familiar questions – his multicolored narratives draw in with interesting story and thoughtful twists. His music has been performed and commissioned by: Metropole Orkest featuring Richard Bona (Netherlands / Cameroon), the Wrocław Philharmonic and Jazztopad Festival, Jazz Orchester Regensburg, Amine et Hamza M’Raihi (Tunisia), Concept Art Orchestra (Czech Republic), Nigel Kennedy Orchestra Strings of Life, Academic Baroque Orchestra (Katowice), Anna Hawkins (New Zealand), Michał Polcyn „Cuiaviana”, Aga Kiepuszewska „Silence”, Orchestra L’Autunno, Karolina Skrzyńska, Adam Bałdych „Storyboard”, Kid Brown, Małgorzata Hutek, Ewelina Serafn Quartet, Cello Girls, Stryjo, Fusion Strings and others.
Notes on the Musma Composition
Wisent once dwelled here as a noble creature. It took prolonged concerted effort of people willing to kill and extract profit to banish the Wisent and force it into exile. After long, hard work in XX century wisent enthusiasts and animal preservers managed to reintroduce wisent to the land it formerly occupied. People took a solemn vow to protect the endangered and to took measures so that the wisent exile would never occur again. That recently changed with people killing them with guns, while the government turned a blind eye. Wisent is being banished into exile once again, in danger on its own land.
Music can extract symbolic meaning to show abstract connections by changes in emotional states. I hope this story about Wisent will be heard and would instill a more compassionate response to all exiled and banished.
