Composer, trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist and curator of international music platforms. Studied choral and chamber music conducting, arranging and composition, trained in trumpet, double bass, piano and classical singing. He holds a PhD from the Instrumental Department of the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz.
Damasiewicz has created more than a dozen ensembles and musical initiatives, drawing on the language of jazz as well as 20th-century classical, ethnic and recent music. He is the creator of the Power of the Horns orchestra, where at least five wind instruments perform in front of a doubled rhythm section. The For Tune label released the band's first album, Alaman, in 2013 – perfectly received by jazz critics. In the same year, recordings of Imprographic 1 by the Damasiewicz quartet, in which improvisation is based on graphic notation, also hit the stores.
Piotr Damasiewicz, photo: artist's press materials
The year 2014 saw the premiere of the 2006-recorded album Mnemotaxia, the trumpeter's first mature quartet, with Gerard Lebik on tenor saxophone, Maciej Garbowski on double bass and Wojciech Romanowski on drums. Under the name Piotr Damasiewicz Viennese Conncetion, he collaborates with musicians associated with the Austrian jazz scene – Thomas Stempkowski, Krzysztof Kasprzyk and Alexander Yannilos. Together with Pawel Szpura and Zbigniew Kozera, he forms the trio Into the Roots, referring to their ethnic travels. Their album Watra, released in 2021, was ranked 3rd in the 2021 JazzPRESS editors' poll, and was also ranked 1st in the poll for Best Polish Jazz Album 2021 organized by Ether Jazz. Damasiewicz collaborates with Maciej Obara and Dominik Wania on a regular basis.
'Piotr Damasiewicz – Into the Roots', photo: artist's press materials
Among his most notable orchestral works are Hadrons for string quintet and jazz ensemble commissioned by the Jazztopad festival, Suite 29 written for the World Jazz Days for Polish Radio, Composition for 27 improvisers as part of the finale of the Melting Pot (Jazztopad) platform in Wroclaw, and a composition based on Delphic sentences, Some Kind Of Greek Story, commissioned by Casa da Música in Porto. In addition to orchestral, chamber and solo works, he also creates theater and film music (Scent of Lviv by Grzegorz Korczak).
In addition to his own projects, Damasiewicz also collaborates with the Portuguese Red Trio, Spinifex, VeNN Circles and Escape Art Quintet, among others. He also collaborated with the artistic circles of academies of fine arts in Wrocław and Katowice as the co-author of various multimedia projects. He had an opportunity to participate in the organization of Avant Art Festival, Gerngesehen and Mex, European musical platform Jazzplayseurope 2010, Take Five Project 2013 and European Jazz Network. He also took part in the international improvised music summit Alpenglow, where leading players from Styria (Austria) met musicians from Wrocław (Poland).
He founded Music According To Art (MATA), an association which promotes artists looking for alternative solutions in art. Apart from musicians, the association gathers people from the world of fine arts who are open to a mutual dialogue. One of its achievements in this area was the exhibition of the artwork by Damasiewicz in Contemporary Art Gallery BWA in Katowice. In this project, he experimented with space and form in a dialogue with Pojęciokształty ("figures of meaning"), works by poet and artist Stanisław Dróżdż.
He has performed at numerous festivals around the world, including the London Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz, Tokyo Jazz Festival, Paris Banlieues Bleues Jazz Festival, Warsaw Summer Jazz Days, Ad Libitum, Musica Polonica Nova, Music Biennale Zagreb and Jeonju International Sori Festival.
Discography:
Piotr Damasiewicz Project – Imprographic 1 (2013)
Power Of The Horns – Alaman (2013)
Maciej Garbowski / Piotr Damasiewicz / Jon Falt – Elements (2012)
Piotr Damasiewicz – Hadrons (2011)
Piotr Damasiewicz Quartet – Mnemotaksja (2008)
Piotr Damasiewicz, Power of the Horns – Polska (2019)
Piotr Damasiewicz, Viennese Connections – Vienna Suite (2020)
Piotr Damasiewicz, Into The Roots – Śpiwle (2020)
Piotr Damasiewicz, Into The Roots – Watra (2021)
Piotr Damasiewicz, Kuba Wójcik – Diavolezza (2022)
Dominik Wania, Piotr Damasiewicz – The Way, The Truth, And the Life (according to Artur Olender) (2023)
Piotr Damasiewicz, Grzegorz Lesiak – Skawa (2023)
Piotr Damasiewicz, Kuba Wójcik – Krew (2023)
Piotr Damasiewicz, Into The Roots – Świtanie (2024)
