Adam Baldych Quartet Sacrum Profanum CD

Sacrum Profanum is a conceptual album, the result of my experiments and creative explorations. I feel that we as humans are more than ever before looking for harmony, faith, timeless values and the truth about ourselves, while also yearning to convey our personalities through self-expression.

This is what Sacrum Profanum means to me. I decided to reach out for sacred music, from the medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen and the renaissance Thomas Tallis, to the contemporary Russian avant-gardist Sofia Gubaidulina. My goal was to capture the timeless beauty of the mystical music of these exceptional composers and interpret their work through contemporary musical language. The album also includes five new compositions that I wrote while working on the project. My artistic journey came back to its starting point. As a young violinist, I was expelled from music school for playing jazz, for improvising and for rebelling against classical music in an attempt to redefine the sound of the violin. Now, once again, I felt the imperative to connect with my greatest inspiration at the moment classical music.

Today, the contemporary language of classical music and the spontaneity of jazz improvisation are my impetus. While working on my new album, I was also intensively exploring a dimension that is often used by New Music composers, sonoristic layer. For the recordings I used orchestral instruments including the gran cassa, gongs, crotales, and a prepared piano. I also wanted to delight in the magical, inspirational and unique sound of the Renaissance violin. For me, contemporary virtuosity is based on the most sophisticated and varied of sounds, full of new colours and different techniques, which I discover by experimenting on my instrument. It gives me an infinite sea of possibilities. Sacrum Profanum is my first album for the ACT label with Polish musicians.

My new quartet consists of unique musical personalities: Krzysztof Dys, Micha Baraski, Dawid Fortuna and myself. Our performance combines what I love most about playing music: a nobility of sound from classical music, an uninhibited imagination from jazz, and inspiration from the traditions of both.