LESZEK MOŻDŻER solo

Leszek Możdżer — an outstanding pianist and composer and producer made a mental and stylistic revolution in Polish jazz, which no other jazzman had before.

He graduated from the Academy of Music in Gdańsk. At the age of 20 he started playing jazz and very quickly gained a high position among Polish jazz musicians. He was repeatedly voted Musician of the Year, Composer of the Year and Pianist of the Year in the annual “Jazz Forum Magazine” plebiscite. To date, he has recorded over a hundred albums with many renowned artists such as: Zbigniew Namysłowski, Tomasz Stańko, Pat Metheny, David Gilmour (ex Pink Floyd), Michał Urbaniak, Lester Bowie, Billie Harper, Lars Danielsson, Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music), Adam Makowicz (album “live at Carnegie Hall”). and has also toured with world-renowned artists such as Charles Fox, Tan Dun, Marcus Miller, Arthur Blythe, Archie Shepp, John Scofield, Bobby McFerrin and many others. In 2012, he was the chairman of the jury of the International Piano Competition held at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

He is the artistic director of ENTER Enea Festival in Poznań.

As a sideman, he recorded music for dozens of films (including for Jan AP Kaczmarek — the Oscar-winning soundtrack to “Finding Neverland”, Zbigniew Preisner, Daniel Bloom and others). He wrote two operas, music for twenty plays and ballets and music for films, among others - “Ikar” directed by Maciej Pieprzyca, “Granatowy Zeszyt” (about Witold Lutosławski) directed by Natasza Ziółkowska - Kurczuk, “Insatiety” directed by Wiktor Grodecki, “We were already” directed by Anon Digger.

He is a laureate of many awards given by Polish national institutions, as well as government awards. He is a very active pianist, performing at home and abroad. Recently, he has been experimenting with different tunings and using them on stage (decaphonic tuning, 440 Hz versus 432 Hz played simultaneously), which makes his music more abstract but still understandable. The latest album by Trio Możdżer -Danielsson - Fresco is a bold step into a world understandable only to the initiated, because here the chromatic system is used in two different tuning standards, additionally supported by a specially made decaphonic piano of the composer - which opens up a whole new space for building melody and harmony. The new, somewhat abstract sound world of Możdżer, although supported by a solid theoretical foundation, is not accessible to everyone, but it is certainly the opening of a new chapter in Polish improvised music.

Leszek Możdżer thus reveals himself as the creator of a new style in jazz music, where sound and atmosphere are built by impression and mood and unique author's performance style. Perhaps that is why the pianist is accepted as an eloquent creator of jazz for the younger generation: a sophisticated artistic proposal, composed of musical fascinations and discoveries of Leszek Możdżer - the most popular jazz musician in Poland today.