On Stage:

Bogusław Grabowski (the organ) and Maciej Sikała (the saxophone) launched their cooperation in 2007 with checks and rehearsals which built the duo’s repertoire. Soon, they began giving concerts winning highly positive reception of their audiences. Asked again and again about the recordings of the presented music they resolved to make a record. The first one, ‘The Colours of Space’, was recorded in 2009. The duo is made up of two instruments so far apart in their sound and typical designation. The very combination of the church organ and the saxophone is so rare as to actually be unprecedented in music. Nevertheless, in the case of these particular musicians the combination does not produce a sense of a clash; on the contrary, it sounds fantastic! Furthermore, the artists improvise together and simultaneously, which is also unusual. The latter fact makes each concert they give a sole and unique event, not to mention they have already given hundreds of performances. No matter where they play or for whom, their music is always received enthusiastically, the audience frequently moved. It is this type of creative art which links people instead of separating them, it is timeless and pan-cultural conveying the essence of all religions, i.e. it is universal in the best sense of the word. The connoisseurs will find superb technique and artistry in the music. The aesthetes will find themselves enchanted with the beauty of the melodic line and unmatched harmony. The faithful will hear prayer. ‘Mater Sanctissima’, the second record, is devoted wholly to the Virgin Mary. Just like the first one, it was all recorded in St. Mary’s Basilica in Gdańsk.

BOGUSŁAW GRABOWSKI – organist and composer born in 1955 in Sopot. Today, he is a full professor at the Stanisław Academy of Music in Gdańsk (aMuz), where he teaches e.g. organ performance, harmony in practice, liturgical accompaniment, organ improvisation, as well as the structure of the organ with musical acoustics. He is the founder of the Department of Church Music aMuz, which he headed for many years. Moreover, he gives lectures at numerous universities of the theological profile. He is a specialist in organ designing, construction, and maintenance. He cooperates with many organ building companies, offering them consultations and preparing expert opinions. The instruments built to his own proprietary designs include e.g. the organ at the Department of Church Music aMuz, or the instrument at the Sanctuary of God’s Mercy in Gdańsk. Before he became the chief organist at the St. Mary’s Co-cathedral Basilica in Gdańsk in 1985, he had been a member of the committee in charge of the project of constructing the organ in the Basilica (at the stage of technological acceptance of the instrument he was the head of the Polish body of the international commission which approved and accepted the built instrument). He is an animator of musical life in Gdańsk and Pomerania, where he has already organized more than 1000 concerts within the framework of international festivals and concert cycles (e.g. the Organ Evenings at St. Mary’s, or Music at the Sanctuary of God’s Mercy in Gdańsk). He is the director of the International Festival of the Organ, Choir and Chamber Music, held annually basis at St. Mary’s Basilica in Gdańsk. He has given concerts at almost all major Polish centres of musical life, and abroad in Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the USA. He has recorded a dozen-or-so CDs of e.g. organ music (Poland, Germany, USA), and his own compositions featuring choirs and symphonic orchestras, as well as improvisations.

MACIEJ SIKAŁA – jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist, composer, and educator born in 1961 in Gdańsk. As an educator, Maciej is currently the Lecturer in Jazz Saxophone at the Academy of Music in Gdańsk and the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. He co-operated, performed and recorded with many top Polish jazz musicians such as Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, Henryk Miśkiewicz, Tomasz Szukalski, Leszek Możdżer, Piotr Wojtasik, Jarosław Śmietana, Leszek Kułakowski, Wojciech Karolak and numerous foreign musicians including Lester Bowie, David Liebman, Ronnie Burrage, Billy Harper, Wayne Dockerey, John Betsch, Kenny Wheeler, Eddie Henderson, Tim Haggans and David Kikoski. He has recorded more than 50 CDs, five of which under his own name. Two of them were nominated to the ‘Fryderyk’ award. For a couple of years he has been conducting classes at jazz workshops in Pułtusk and Nysa. He performed in Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, The Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and Ukraine. The first place winner in the tenor saxophone category of the Jazz Forum Magazine readers’ poll ‘Jazz Top’ in the years 1995–2005, 2010 and 2012–2023. He currently leads his Septet Trio (Sebastian Frankiewicz – percussion, Wojciech Pulcyn – double bass) and collaborates with, among others, the bands of Kuba Stankiewicz, Wojciech Majewski, Jacek Rodziewicz, as well as in a quartet composed of lecturers from the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz – Piotr Biskupski, Krzysztof Herdzin, Grzegorz Nadolny, and the band QYAVY. Since December 2019, he has been working with Anna Maria Jopek.