This year the trip went to Warsaw, where the Danish delegation spent two days with jazz actors from Warsaw.

The network delegation consisted of representatives from Kaja Management, Barefoot Records, Sun Ship, Jazz9Tus, MAP Music Agency, April Records, Asigmatic Records, SPATiF, Better Live, Jazz Po Polsku, Jazz Forum, Bardzo Bardzo, Polish Jazz Association, NOSPR and others.

The program for the two days consisted of, among other things, of presentations and presentations about the Polish jazz landscape with a particular focus on Warsaw’s jazz scene, speed meetings with local musicians and film screenings. In order to give the participants a broad knowledge of the jazz scene, it was therefore also a priority that the various events were held at several of Warsaw’s venues such as Jassmine, Pardon To Tu, Baza and SPATiF.

Furthermore, the network was invited to a reception at the Danish Embassy in Poland, where Ambassador Ole Toft invited the participants into the ambassador’s residence and expressed his support for the project with the hope for even more Danish-Polish jazz projects in the future.

This year, the musical element consisted of a collaboration with the already existing Danish-Polish festival Idealistic Festival, founded by the musicians Kamil Piotrowicz and Szymon Gąsiorek, who held their fifth edition of the festival in Warsaw. Idealistic Festival Vol. 5 presented i.a. acts such as SVIN (DK), Kresten Osgood (DK), Marcella Lucatelli (DK), Asger Thomsen (DK), Irek Wojtczak (PL) and Artificialice (PL) and more.

The future focus on Poland builds on the bridge building of the past

The project, which started in 2022 as a pilot project in Copenhagen under the title DKPL, has developed into a formal network project with the name Danish Polish Jazz Network. The Danish Polish Jazz Network is a result of the already existing bridge building between the Danish and Polish jazz scene. A bridge building that has its roots all the way back to the 60s and 70s with Krzysztof Komeda’s Henning Carlsen scores and Tomasz Stanko’s love for the scene around Jazzhus Montmartre.

Since 2004, when Poland was admitted to the EU, thus opening up the possibilities for easier participation in exchange programs, a significant number of young Polish musicians have studied at the Danish conservatories. The Polish musicians have formed bands together with their Danish fellow students, built careers and lives in Denmark, but still maintained the connection to their Polish roots. Today, the Danish-Polish musicians are a permanent and significant part of the Danish jazz scene. The musicians tour in both countries, make their own festivals and every year the conservatories see new highly trained musicians who are looking for places and want to participate in the exchange.