Damian Westfal, Interia Muzyka: The album was created from concert recordings. Why did you decide to do the live version?
Artur Dutkiewicz: – I wanted to record a live album because previously all my albums were studio albums. A concert means the audience’s reaction, greater energy, the atmosphere of the place, and dialogue with people. The album contains recordings from two completely different spaces – one very large and one intimate. It all matters.
How did this idea start to form in your head?
– This is the result of many years of searching. I played very dynamic and complicated music, but over time I felt the need to play more calming things. My experiences with musicians from all over the world had a great influence – I played meditative ragas and Gregorian chant in India, and I also listened to sacred music from various cultures. I noticed that despite different means of expression, the energy of this music is the same. When I had sketches of the project, I accidentally visited the church in Wesoła in Warsaw, filled with beautiful icons by Jerzy Nowosielski. They delighted me and moved me so much that I wanted to play a concert there, based on the material I had. The Nowosielski Audiovisual Mysterium project was created – a fullness for the ears and eyes, where we perform improvised music to the collages of the master’s paintings created live by the visual artist Andrzej Wąsik. Eventually, I started listening to the recorded concerts and chose five meditation songs that I included on the latest album.
What led you to Jerzy Nowosielski?
– Absolute coincidence. I saw it, closed my eyes, started to experience it, entered the inner silence and music appeared. Only later, when I began to explore his thoughts, did I understand that he meant exactly the same thing: art as a tunnel to something bigger than us. Form is a tool – the key that allows you to go beyond it.
Were there any specific elements of his art that you wanted to translate into music?
– Probably not specific paintings, but the infatuation with the incredible aura of his paintings. I am close to abstraction, but also contemplation present in icons. During concerts, images change, interpenetrate, move like a film – and I play while looking at them at the same time. It’s a very intense experience.
Meditation, yoga and breathing often appear in your stories. How does this influence your music?
– These are all ways to make the most of the potential of intelligence that each of us has. Meditation brings relaxation, clarity of mind, enthusiasm, better contact with people and yourself, and faster decision-making. This is a lifestyle. I have been meditating for about 35 years. Breathing is key – a long breath calms you down, a short one generates anxiety. Music works similarly: it leads to contact with oneself. It’s not about any fanciful mysticism, but about real experience.
So what does the “music of silence” mean to you?
– It is a link between the external and internal world, breath, peace, contact with yourself, with the source of strength. It is like opening a window to infinity. Music leads to silence. Silence is the starting point – everything is born from silence and returns to silence. In general, music itself is something that has no shape, even though it is placed in a form, something out of this world, and yet something that can be truly experienced. Music silences the “talking head” and at the same time awakens the soul, which we don’t really know what it is because we can’t see its shape – just like in abstract art.
Does such thinking come with age, experience, lifestyle or self-awareness?
– I think it’s different. Some people are ready for art very early, at childhood – like the great Mozart or Chopin. Children are naturally closest to this state, then we lose it and try to return to it consciously. Yoga, meditation, art – all these are ways of returning to the roots.
The audience in Poland and abroad perceive your music differently?
– People generally react similarly everywhere, if a player gives one hundred percent, being fully in the present moment, the audience subconsciously senses it perfectly. Musicians are like strings – they must always be well tuned to keep the audience in tune.
Are there any concerts that surprise you?
– Of course, there are cultural differences, but they are blurring. In Africa, people danced during concerts. In Scandinavia, where I heard that the audience is cool, it can be lively, in Japan the audience is extremely focused and restrained, and then bursts into a huge ovation, after the concert there is a long queue – everyone must have a photo with the artist. In China, until recently, even after a warm ovation at the end of the concert, the audience left at once as if on command, there was no tradition of encores – this has recently changed.
What are your future plans?
– We are playing a series of concerts in Poland with the Nowosielski Audiovisual program with songs from the latest album. We are also going to the International Jazz Day established by UNESCO. This year, the main city of the celebration is Chicago and the artistic director is world jazz star Herbie Hancock. This is a huge musical event. As Artur Dutkiewicz Trio, we will play there on April 30. I’m also preparing another album based on my compositions, but I don’t know yet when it will see the light of day – for now I’m focusing on current concerts.
What advice would you have for young musicians?
– Everyone should find their own music, everyone has their own melody. The most important thing is to find it and be yourself, using where you are from, because there are a lot of copies today. Believe in yourself and compete with yourself, not with others, because it will only weaken you. Music is for people – we serve them.
– Each improvisation is one-off – it cannot be repeated, it arises from a state of consciousness, not from memory. There is an apt message from one of the great musicians: “Improvise as if you were playing from sheet music, play from sheet music as if you were improvising.” You have to work and practice a lot, then forget about technique and let the magic happen. As Nowosielski said: “If there is no magic, there is no art.”