This New Year's Eve, Lublin residents will have two big reasons to celebrate. Not only will they welcome the New Year, but also start the celebration of the 700th anniversary of the granting of the city charter to Lublin.
Feel invited to come to Plac Teatralny square in front of the Centre for the Meeting of Cultures for a joyful, festive and modern multimedia and music show about our city's past and present. You will be taken on a musical journey starting from the 13th-century songs about the legendary city of Lublin and finishing off with hip hop and stories about the present-day districts of our city. The city-inspired music will blend with some exciting visualisations created by Lublin's kilku.com group specifically for the biggest screen in the city, that is the interactive facade of the Centre for the Meeting of Cultures. There will also be time for some real fun and laughter, when Poławiacze Pereł, real masters of improvisation and good humour, introduce you to the history and future of Lublin.
The whole celebration will start at 8 p.m. with an extraordinary concert of Lubelska Federacja Bardów band which will take you to magical world of old-time stories, legends and fables about Lublin. Then, together with the Klezmafour band, you will immerse yourselves in the former bustling Jewish city. The musical journey through the history of the city will also take you to the gloomy times of the Polish People’s Republic. However, energetic dance music of Backbeat band will help you look at that period from a brighter perspective. The atmosphere of dancing and partying to the hits of the 60s and 70s will lead you to the present times, where Junior Stress will sing about Lublin's districts in a true reggae style. Chonabibe, a hip hop and soul group, will surely add up some more energy to the show. After midnight, Lublin citizens will be invited to dance together to the most energetic big band, funk and swing music of Lublin Street Band.
The artists represent different generations and different types of music but they all come from Lublin. Their Lublin-related performances will be accompanied by the latest visualisation techniques, especially prepared multimedia and pyrotechnic shows.
The theme of this New Year’s Eve celebration is all about happiness and inspiration derived from heritage. We will look at our city not only through music, but also through a new medium, new technologies and from a new place perspective. Combining the past and the present, we will see how Lublin citizens have been celebrating over the past 700 years.
NEW YEAR’S EVE
Plac Teatralny square / 8.00 p.m. – 1.00 a.m.
PERFORMERS
Lubelska Federacja Bardów
An original stage group offering their own understanding of entertainment. They derive inspiration from the “Kresy” folklore and classical music and refer to the sophisticated genres of rock and pop. The group is characterised by extraordinarily powerful voices and exceptional attention to music and lyrics. Federacja has successfully performed in Vienna, Paris, New York, Lviv and London.
During their New Year’s Eve concert, the group will present “klechdy lubelskie”, that is, old stories and legends related to the region. The name is quite archaic because the repertoire dates back to the times of Jan Kochanowski and Mikołaj Rej. Sebastian Klonowic, Szymon Szymonowic, Wincenty Pol and Józef Czechowicz will also be included. What is characteristic about Federacja's work is the coexistence of old-time motives with contemporary electric sound. All the compositions were created by the members of the group.
Klezmafour
With its members coming from Lublin, Białystok and Warsaw, the band derives inspiration from klezmer traditions of those regions. The group, however, combine these traditions with energetic rock and Balkan frenzy in a totally innovative way. Consisting of classically educated musicians, the band received two awards at the very prestigious International Jewish Music Festival 2010 in Amsterdam. Their winning resulted in a well-received concert tour in the USA and Canada, where they performed in front of an audience of several thousand people alongside such celebrities as Balkan Beat Box, as well as in numerous festivals abroad. Klezmafour’s music is a turbocharged vehicle of folklore. They derive everything that is good, interesting and surprising from the world of music. They focus on Poland but seem to be attracted to the East, as proven by their musical journeys to Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria and India. The sound of traditional instruments is combined with a huge dose of electronics, which, added to the group's concert energy, creates an explosive mixture.
BackBeat
Starting crazy rock'n'roll parties is their specialty. The band turned cover music into real art and played hundreds of concerts both in Poland and abroad. What is more, they received a festival prize (Węgorzewo Rock Festival 2008), gained recognition from music critics, journalists and the public which was enchanted by their irrepressible shows.
On the New Year’s Eve, the band will present the hits of the golden era of rock'n'roll, featuring such artists as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Beatles and many more. Backbeat versions are very similar to the originals and even though they have a stronger sound, they are still great for dancing.
Since May 2012 the band has been giving concerts with charismatic Łukasz Jemioła, a vocalist who has been awarded on many contests and festivals and whose interpretation of Bob Dylan’s song “Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You” enchanted the judging panel of one of the Polish editions of The X Factor music competition.
Junior Stress
A vocalist associated with reggae and dancehall music, member of the oldest Polish sound system Love Sen-C Music and Geto Blasta formation. He also works on his solo career. Nowadays Junior Stress can be described as “the youngest veteran”. He has been appreciated by both reggae and hip hop performers since the very beginning of his activity. This may be proven by the list of artists and producers with whom he cooperated. It included, among others, Eastwest Rockers, Marika, Grubson, Lech Janerka and Natural Dread Killaz. Junior Stress can also be heard on the latest Hemp Gru album.
Chonabibe
This music band was set up in Lublin in 2009. It released two albums which were highly appreciated by the audience and the critics: “Migrations” (2014) and “Panoramas” (2015). Their style is very expressive yet difficult to define as they get inspirations from hip hop, modern electronic music and soul vocalization. The group's commitment, Polish-language lyrics, two complementing vocals and innovative music based on live instruments but accompanied by the music samples, synthesizers and beat-box are the highlight of their style.
The true element of the band are the concerts which attract fans from the entire age range. During its shows, Chonabibe creates a special bond with the audience and immediately pulls them into its eclectic music world. So far they have performed at, i.e. Ostróda Reggae Festival, Warsaw Challenge, Regałowisko and have given many other concerts both in Poland and abroad.
Lublin Street Band
The power of wind instruments with some drum beat that appeals to everyone! This time LSB is going to perform with a bigger line-up of nine members. We can therefore expect an intense atmosphere and extraordinary energy of funk, big band, swing and jazz music. The band was created in order to represent Lublin in Wrocław during The European Capital of Culture celebrations in 2016. The members of the band are young and talented musicians from Lublin who normally play in other bands. Lublin Street Band presents its own compositions expanded to include jazz standards. They perform unplugged, as street orchestra and with full stage sound including enriched rhythm, guitar and piano section.
Apart from the 2016 European Capital of Culture concerts, Lublin Street Band performed at the 2016 Night of Culture in Lublin and at the Lublin Legends Festival, where it impersonated a roguish interwar orchestra and played good old swing as well as Dixieland, jazz and big band standards in completely new arrangements.
Poławiacze Pereł [Pearl Divers]
In the early 2015 a new improvisational theatre group came into existence in Lublin. Przemysław Buksiński (the man who brought improvs from Canada to Poland) together with Mirosław Urban, actors Remigiusz Jankowski and Łukasz “Szampanek” Szymanek, as well as with the members of Świerszczychrząszcz Sketch Group Marcin Wąsowski and Michał Łysiak, stood in front of the audience for the first time and, using the viewers’ suggestions, they created a virtual world of a momentary and unique theatre. The aim of Poławiacze Pereł is not a one-time smile caused by a quick or easy joke. Their life experience and rich theatrical past, brought together with improv, is an excellent combination which will undoubtedly be an unforgettable experience for the audience.
kilku.com
The group was established in Lublin in 2008. Nowadays it consists of four persons, designers and artists, who are scattered all over the world. Their activities include publication and graphic design (Ida Smyczyńska, Robert Zając) as well as interactive media, animations, mapping and scenography preparation (Aleksander Janas, Paweł Szarzyński). The group has made several tens of posters, books, publications, scenography projects, architectural projections and has done countless successful and unsuccessful experiments.
