INFORMATION PORTAL OF THE MARSHAL'S OFFICE OF THE KUJAWSKO-POMORSKIE Region IN TORUŃ

Interview with Rafał Gorzycki, Malwina Marciniak and Grzegorz Wawrzyńczak honoured by Marshal Piotr Całbecki with artistic scholarships.

 

Everything has become jazz

 

 

You wrote that you fell in love with jazz. Why?

 

Rafał Gorzycki: – I was 16 years old, just getting to know the world of music, and jazz seemed full of freedom and energy. I was already playing drums at the time, but I still had no idea what style I wanted to focus on. When I heard John Scofield and Miles Davis at the Jazz Jamboree – everything became clear to me. Then I met Piotr Biskupski, thanks to whom I passed my entrance exams to music school. That was the beginning, and then I took up composing. After studying composition, I wrote more and more music in the spirit of contemporary chamber music.

 

What artistic project are you particularly proud of?

 

Rafal Gorzycki: – It is difficult to value and choose the ‘child you love the most’. I think it would be any of the premieres of my classical repertoire. I would also mention my latest composition, the opera ‘Mirror of the Master’, which I started working on a year ago as part of the UNESCO Music City platform. Its premiere is planned for the autumn of 2026.

 

How will the Marshall Scholarship affect your work?

 

Rafał Gorzycki: – It is an important support, without which many projects would not come to life. Art is often a non-commercial activity that is based on creative need rather than economic balance. The continuation of the platform bringing together composers, performers and sound designers associated with the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz is such an undertaking, appreciated by the Marshal and the scholarship committee. I am delighted that together with Mikołaj Sarad and Krzysztof ‘Frezeem’ Ostrowski, we will compose and record songs for the album: ‘Bydgoski Kolektyw Kompozytorski – Zwei’.

Draws a ‘Vampire’

 

 

The first comic book you read was…

 

Grzegorz Wawrzyńczak: – ‘Adventures of Superman’, which I found under the Christmas tree in 1996. That’s how I became completely absorbed by comics at the age of nine. I was lucky that my parents instilled a love of comics in me.

 

Which comic book character did you particularly like?

 

Grzegorz Wawrzyńczak: – It’s Corto Maltese, the sailor from Hugo Pratt’s comics, and the character Hellboy from Mike Mignola’s work. When I left comics for many years and took up other areas of art, it was these two characters that reignited the passion for comics in me.

 

What do you talk about in your comics?

 

Grzegorz Wawrzyńczak: – For me, comics is a unique medium that combines literature and visual arts. Thanks to them, I can tell a story and visualise it at the same time. There is a lot of passion and sentiment in my work, linked to my childhood memories, which is why I move freely in the world of comics. However, for now it is a medium full of exploration for me, an artistic training ground through which I am developing as an artist, but I am only just finding my voice in it. I feel that the moment of full awareness in expressing myself through the art of comics is yet to come.

 

How do you perceive the distinction awarded by the Marshal?

 

Grzegorz Wawrzyńczak: – I am delighted that a creator of comics has been included on the list of scholarship recipients alongside such great artists and art disciplines as painting, music and theatre, among others. It is not only a great honour, but also a reward for the work I have already done and support for the work I have conceived and am yet to do.

 

What are you working on now?

 

Grzegorz Wawrzyńczak: – I am currently working on several projects. In one, I will be developing the graphic layer with the audio layer of the story. The idea is to include music in the comic. Modern technology makes it possible to use solutions so that music can be listened to while reading. Another thing I am working on is a historical comic about the Battle of Gorlice – one of the most important battles of the First World War. I also periodically create short comic forms for several comic publications in the country. I have started work on a comic book I am creating as part of a Marshal’s art grant I received. It will be a graphic novel based on Władysław Reymont’s The Vampire.

 

Classics and modernity

 

 

You sit down at the piano to play your favourite musical theme. What piece is it?

 

Malwina Marciniak: – Piano literature is extremely vast. It includes compositions written over 300 years ago, as well as those created today. Thinking of a group of favourite pieces, I would point to the repertoire of the Romantics – Chopin, Schumann or Grieg, but also music created in the 20th century – Debussy, Rachmaninov or one of Alexander Tansman’s sonatas, which I have had in my repertoire for many years. In recent times, I have also turned to newer works a lot, fascinated by the richness of the sounds and textures used, so I think there could be a place among my favourite compositions for one of William Bolcom’s miniatures or Philip Glass’s etudes.

 

Which concert in particular do you remember?

 

Malwina Marciniak: – A few years ago – as a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra – I had the pleasure of performing at a concert to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War in the Stephansdom Cathedral in Vienna, and at an open-air concert in front of an audience of more than 2,000 at the Wolkenturm Grafenegg complex. The opportunity to tour internationally with an orchestra of musicians representing a variety of countries and musical centres, and to perform in such prestigious locations occupy an important place in my memories. They are also an important point on the path of my artistic development. I also particularly remember my first artistic project last year in Colorado in the United States, where I presented a so-called lecture-recital related to the subject of my recently defended doctoral thesis on contemporary Polish music. The opportunity to present my research on a distant continent, in a completely different scientific and artistic environment, was a great inspiration and motivation for further activities. It also allowed for an extremely valuable confrontation of artistic attitudes, as well as the establishment of important professional contacts, which I hope to develop in future projects.

 

Are you happy to have received the scholarship?

 

Malwina Marciniak: – Definitely! It is extremely satisfying to be appreciated among artists from the region, where I have been artistically active for several years. I am even more pleased that the scholarship project will include a discussion of the latest compositions from Kujawsko-Pomorskie. The rank and prestige of the Marshal’s scholarships, as well as the high artistic level of all the awarded projects, make it a great honour for me to be included in this year’s group of scholarship holders.

 

11 April 2025