Warszawa Kyiv Express – band’s musical inspirations

Between the Baltic shore, the Western Tatra range and blue waters of the Dnieper river a country extends which has been forming its own, unique identity over hundreds of years. There lived communities that not only spoke many languages, but also shared the richness of various emotions.The existence of one multinational, multi-faith and multicultural country played a significant role.
This region of Europe has a fascinating and rich heritage of folk music.It still hides numerous mysteries and is a dream destination for those who seek multicultural inspirations, as it was the case of the musicians from the band Warszawa Kyiv Express who got fascinated with Polish and Ukrainian folk music.

On the one hand, the WKE’s music is created of newly discovered melodies, rooted in the musical tradition of Central and Eastern Europe; on the other hand, of rich, jazz, masterly performed arrangements, expanded improvisations and sophisticated sound. Owing to all that, emotions hidden in the music of the regions of Poland and Ukraine gain unique freshness.
Warszawa Kyiv Express – a new phenomenon in the modern jazz music. An original, full of expression combination of rhythms, harmonies, scales and themes, irregular measures along with the precise arrangement make the music surprising by its unexpected associations.
The WKE’s musicis an interesting offer to sensitive and demanding listeners who seek originality.

Warszawa Kyiv Express was founded by Piotr Karol Sawicki, pianist, composer and arranger and Konstantyn “Cat” Donskoj, Ukrainian trumpeter, composer and arranger, who has been active on the European music scene for twenty years.


Warszawa Kyiv Express – jazz voyage to the roots

They are bold recordings, which in their extremely evocative style combine sonority of jazz with Slavic folklore. There are no fast commercial associations here, no cheap folk-like interpretation, but a masterly built sound, perfect technique and rare ability to combine ethnic elements (folklore and to some extent “folk jazz”) with emotion and mood that are typical of jazz structure. What I highly recommend in their music is the search for ethnic associations and inspiration drawn from folk melodic patterns or tradition.

Dionizy Piątkowski / Era Jazzu

Warszawa Kyiv Express was highly appraised, not only in Poland. After their performance at the annual Eddie Lang Jazz Festival in Monteroduni 2010, the Italian press wrote:

Pignatelli’s castle was extremely vivid that evening. We watched the performance of Warszawa Kyiv Express. The band draws inspiration from Polish and Ukrainian folk music, and offers a nice touch of ethno-jazz sounds, which are rich in old folk traditions. The band turned out to be a revelation of the 20th edition of the festival.

– Il Tempo