Albums

COMFORT ZONE

“It’s too long, boring probably. Something else’d be better”.
“We’re not going all that way to see each other – we’ll write it all down online chatting!”
“Leave it, forget about it for now”.
“It’s good the way it is. Just to be on the safe side, let’s not change anything”.

Life is somewhere between feeling secure and changing the future. For love of comfort or out of fear, we create an illusion of a safe bay where nothing will disturb our peace. Neither will we experience, understand, or learn anything there. Less risk, less depth, less pain and inconvenience. More fleeting smiles, brief pleasure, oblivion.
True love that requires effort or a step into the unknown. Superficial relations instead of frankness and devotion. Work into which we escape but which there is no escaping in our own minds. Sudden goodbyes we refuse to accept. Replies we chase after with no sense of meaning. Death, which will stop us before our goal anyway.
Great, wonderful and genuine events happen outside our comfort zone. When things take longer. Happen more acutely. Go deeper.

proMODERN

"It is a meticulously programmed and emotionally expressive album, mainly because of an outstanding performance. It seems like a beautiful and mysterious musical tale. Electronic Interludes refer to prominent tradition of Polish Radio Experimental Studio."

Ewa Szczecińska, Polish Radio

Buy CD at DUX

Stockhausen composed "Stimmung" in 1968 at home with two small children in the adjacent room—decided to “communicate” with his surroundings in an unusual way. The composition was written for six vocalists and required a special vocal technique (overtone singing) as well as total unification. The author prepared a precise “instruction manual.” Each artist could choose from eight (women) or nine (men) rhythmic vocal models and from cards of magical names of deities from different cultures (to juggle them freely). All this to create a sequence of fluid 51 formulas (sections), each lead by a different vocalist serving as a guide—the coryphaeus. The composer joked that he “wrote a 75-minute piece based on one B-flat ninth chord.” In practice, this B sound (which is continuously renewed) shimmers, thanks to aliquots, with changing tone, contrasts, intensity. It pulls into a trance and overwhelms. “STIMMUNG is certainly meditative music. Time is suspended”—Stockhausen commented. “One listens to the interior of the sound, to the interior of the harmonic spectrum, to the interior of the vowel, to the interior.” Despite the piece’s specific vocal technique, acoustic aura and peculiar philosophy, “entering” STIMMUNG is not an arduous process. What is important is the declaration of co-participation of joint experiencing, sensing, cleansing. Of listening to oneself and to one’s surroundings. Of inner and outer harmony. Complete freedom.

Bôłt Records

“Question: Why didn’t proMODERN take on this work until now, why did Stimmung have to wait as long as half a century for its Polish performers? There is no doubt it is difficult and, as we can see, this was the first group with enough ambition to take on the challenge. They did an excellent job”.

Dorota Szwarcman, Poland’s leading music critic

Buy CD at Bôłt Records

Love, longing, desire and betrayal, youth, family, old age and death…
While reading Shakespeare, we discover our deepest emotions in his verse – as though that Elizabethan poet had known the secrets of the modern man, or as if the hidden knowledge and alchemy of the human heart did not change with time. Though the language he uses is now centuries old, the message of these songs remains relevant and alive. They tell us about everyday human emotions in simple words, but in a refined form.
Contemporary music brings out the current relevance of the British master’s verse. Likewise intimate and sublime, the music brings us closer to the meanings of William Shakespeare’s mysterious sonnets.

proMODERN

"With ‘... shakespired’, proMODERN have realised a remarkable artistic vision. I am proud to be a part  of this dramatic musical journey.”

Philip Lawson

"proMODERN are a seriously exciting group. There are obvious parallels with James Weeks’s Exaudi or Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices but proMODERN’s sound is all their own – lean, sinewy and infinitely agile. A collective of soloists with an enormous technical toy-box, the group is surely a composer’s dream, offering limitless possibilities."

Alexandra Coghlan, "Gramophone"

Buy CD at Warner Classics

Seeking for beauty, it is what singing means to us. We’ve been training our voices and souls to be the device of giving the audience the art, as delicate as the phenomenon of silence. We are fixing our eyes on the point in which the essence of a precious sound is present. Listener, be with us where we are heading for.
First of all, modern music is the art of today. It is the most present creation for our aestehtics and our values. It is the world of sounds that is close  to us, being created by composers standing next to us, living in the same city, doing shopping in the same places. Modern music is looking for something that we are all looking for – the moment of being amazed with beauty.
Where are you...? In a sincere pray...? In a longing declaration of love...? In a flame of emotions...?
proMODERN invites you to the beautiful world of modern music.

“Where are you? Pieces from Warsaw“ is a collection of pieces by young generation composers being close to everyday Warsaw. It is the effect of a frendship connecting proMODERN with modern music creators living in Warsaw. It was founded by people for whom beauty and timbre in music is not indifferent. proMODERN would like to remind the listeners and composers that charm, heart bliss, and a precious flame is the power of the art which unites. The power that is still present, not being shouted down by the effect, snaps, shock or coldness of the narcissistic snobbery. Modern music is being created for everyone, it might be beautiful for everyone and will be always worth cognition.

proMODERN

proMODERN delivers bright timbre and agility and the ability to place chords with tremendous precision. The sound they make is in many ways actually a very English one – think of The King’s Singers with added female voices – but that does not mean that it lacks passion; quite the reverse!

Ivan Moody, “Gramophone”

Buy CD at Sarton Records