Odpust Zupełny

ODPUST ZUPEŁNY plays mediaeval music in a different way… The musicians of Odpust explore strange dimensions of time and space stretching from the Mediaeval Ages to a village church fair. They refer to mediaeval court traditions of the West - songs of troubadours and minstrels echoing crusades and battles, political events, as well as love adventures, performed to entertain knights and court. Sources of inspiration can also be traced back to wandering musicians of old Russia, who were eastern counterparts of mediaeval entertainers from western Europe. These artists entertained lords at feasts and folk at fairs, participated in weddings and funerals, performed at church holidays. The repertoire of the group includes songs about knights, solemn, satirical or even frivolous songs, melodies played at feasts, as well as mediaeval and renaissance dances. Apart from these, the band also plays songs and melodies that can still sometimes be heard at crusades. And all this music is suited to please taste of fastidious audience at fairs. Trying to establish contact with a listener of folk who also feels attracted to the mood of mediaeval tunes, the group attempts to restore folk tradition on the basis of mediaeval and renaissance music - and vice versa. Polish folk motifs - words and music - come from the works of Oskar Kolberg and from traditional phonographic recordings. There are also some references to Celtic and Iberian folklore. The musicians of Odpust say about themselves: "Unlike other groups playing mediaeval music, we do not try to reconstruct it. Our purpose is to preserve its spirit, to guess what it used to be like in former times. We usually begin from a source and then we bring to the song something from ourselves. It happens e.g. in contemporary music that a composer gives only a tone and the rest is to be created by a musician. We work in a similar way. It is the atmosphere and building in imagination that are important." The instruments of the group include violin, oboe and double bass, accompanied by unusual instruments from the borders of folklore and mediaeval music: oud, saz, mandola, mandolin, hurdy-gurdy, zurna (Turkish wind instrument), koboz (Hungarian lute), Polish folk violin, numerous drums, and a rich choice of flutes and pipes. In 2003 the group received first award at the VI Polish Radio Festival of Folk Music "Nowa Tradycja" in Warsaw. The members of Odpust Zupełny are: Bogdan Bracha, Marcin Skrzypek, Piotr Majczyna, Grzegorz Brzozowski, Anna Bielak and Paweł Giszczak. Source: www.orkiestra.umcs.lublin.pl