Spoldzielnia Muzyczna contemporary ensemble

In 2013 a group of Kraków-based instrumentalists shared stage as part of the European Workshop for Contemporary Music, conducted by maestro Rüdiger Bohn. Having then played together at Darmstadt’s Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, the musicians—persuaded by Martyna Zakrzewska, Mateusz Rusowicz, and Piotr Peszat—established an independent body. A couple of events held in a community centre by one of the town’s exit roads and in a then neglected and declining theatre-slash-cinema marked the beginnings of Spółdzielnia Muzyczna contemporary ensemble (literally, ‘Musicians Associated’—but we would like to remain known under our Polish name), a group who specialise in performing new music, awarded the Ensemble Prize from Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung in 2021.