Adam Baldych Quartet

Violinist and composer. Born 18.05.1986 in Gorzow Wielkopolski, based in Warsaw. A graduate of the Academy of Music in Katowice, tutored by Henryk Gembalski. Since 2012 he has been associated with ACT music publisher seated in Munich.

Dubbed “a violin prodigy”, he started his career at the age of 14. He was promptly recognised as an innovator combining the achievements of classical music and the contemporary language of the violin with an improviser’s talent. In a short time, he created his own style, which became an inspiration for a new generation of improvising violinists.

He has presented his music at the most important jazz festivals and in prestigious concert halls, in countries such as: Poland, Germany, South Korea, China, Japan, the United States, Canada, Austria, Iceland, Portugal, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy, Spain, and Indonesia. He has performed and recorded with extraordinary artists such as: Yaron Herman, Agata Zubel, Cezary Duchnowski, Helge Lien, Aaron Parks, Lars Danielsson, Nils Landgren, Iiro Rantala, Marius Neset, Jacob Karlzon, Joachim Kuhn, and Billy Cobham. He has received numerous prizes and awards, such as: The Grand Prix and the individual award of the Jazz nad Odrą festival (2006), ECHO Jazz – a German music industry award (2013), the Polish gold Cross of Merit (2016) and the Decoration of Honor Meritorious for Polish Culture (2016). In 2020, together with the Adam Bałdych Quartet, he became a finalist of the prestigious BMW Welt Jazz 2020 award, with results to be announced in January 2021.

Adam Bałdych has been more and more active as a classical composer, writing pieces commissioned by renowned orchestras. In 2015 he composed the Mozaika-Impresje piece commissioned by the Szczecin Baltic Neopolis Orchestra, and in 2016 he wrote Antiphona to the texts found in the Qumran caves for the Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej. In 2019 he prepared the Early Birds Symphony commissioned by the AUKSO orchestra for the Auksodrone festival, and he is about to realise further commissions for AUKSO. In 2021 Adam Bałdych’s new composition, commissioned by the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, will be premiered in Stuttgart.

Adam Bałdych is appreciated for his creativity in the field of jazz and contemporary music performance, blending the two domains in a creative manner, and a great expressivity of his musical interpretations. He has participated in recording nearly 20 albums. The latest, released in 2021 – Poetry – is the seventh album he wrote and performed in published by ACT. This album is Bałdych’s collaboration with the extraordinary Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu, the album appeared in the ranking of the most important publications of the year by the American portal Bandcamp and the British JazzWise magazine.

“Without doubt the greatest living master of violin in jazz. His potential knows no bounds” FAZ

“Harmony and beauty.” Jazzthing

“No one else plays jazz on the violin as crisply and bitingly, but also lyrically and always well phrased as Adam Bałdych.” NDR Kultur

“Without doubt the greatest living master of violin in jazz. His potential knows no bounds”, wrote the FAZ after Polish violinist Adam Bałdych’s celebrated performance at the 2011 Jazzfest Berlin. On “Imaginary Room,” his first album for the ACT label, we hear a jazz violinist as one has never experienced him before: No wailing and sobbing, rather Bałdych’s technically breathtaking lines are reminiscent of those of a brass instrument, and the polyphonic passages of a pianist’s chords, always underpinned by a somewhat rough, bluesy undertone. He made a splash at JazzBaltica 2012 and the Montreux Jazz Festival, leaving no doubt that Europe has a new jazz star. Bałdych combines aspects of different musical styles and eras and lives up to this high standard.