Anna Maria Jopek’s group will play at Tokyo’s Blue Note club on the 5th of October en route to Korea. The Polish Institute in Tokyo will stream the performance on the local radio and TV. Jopek has been well know in Japan for several years, and released the album HAIKU in collaboration with Japanese artists including the popular musician Makoto Ozone. October's performances will include the singer's Polish band.
The RGG Trio will be promoting their album Szymanowski on two stages at Jarasum, and have a performance in Seoul prior to the festival. Pink Freud is scheduled to participate in the Korean Jazz Showcase. This program is featured at the Jarasum festival and at four other concerts organised in Korea. Thanks to support of Thistime Records the group will travel to Tokyo, where they play two concerts at the Daikanyama Unit club on the 9th of October and at the Shibuya Nest club the following evening. In this year’s tour of Japan, the group will also accompany the Japanese artist Kadota "Jaw" Kousuke, saxophonist from the renowned group PE'Z.
the Polish jazz musicians performing in Korea and Japan is a continuation of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute’s cooperation with the Jarasum festival as well as the earlier presence of Polish music and artists in Asia.
Anna Maria Jopek
A graduate from the Academy of Music in Warsaw specialising in piano, Jopek also studied with the jazz department at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City and received scholarships from the Frederick Chopin Association and Columbia University in New York.
In 1997, she represented Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest held in Dublin and took 11th place. A few month later the artists released her debut, Ale jestem / But I Am, which reached gold status. That same year she participated in the legendary concert Krajowy Festiwal Piosenki Polskiej / National Festival of Polish Songs in Opole, performing her song Zielono mi / I’m Green. In 2000 she began her international career with the release of Barefoot then came out in 2005 with Secret. Jopek performed on the album Upojenie / Rapture (2002) with renowned U.S. guitarist Pat Matheny.
RGG Trio presents a European flavour of improvisation, with Łukasz Ojdana on piano, Maciej Garbowski on bass and Krzysztof Gradziuk on percussion.
Pink Freud, formed in 1998 by bassist Wojtek Mazolewski, Tomasz Duda on saxophone, Adam Milwiw-Baron on trumpet and electronics, and Rafał Klimczuk on percussion. Their music goes beyond traditional forms of improvisation and takes styles from genres like punk rock, rock, drum and bass, dub and forms of experimental electronic music.