JAZZ CANTATA INSPIRED BY KAROL WOJTYLA’S POETRY
"Love explained everything to me"

Composer: JOACHIM MENCEL

Performers:

Solosits:
EWA BEM - vocals /Poland/
VALERIE EKOUME – vocals /Cameroon/
ANGELICA SEPE – vocals /Italy/
MIECZYSŁAW SZCZEŚNIAK- vocals /Poland/
JORGOS SKOLIAS - vocals /Poland/
LEE KONITZ - saxophone /USA/
JANUSZ MUNIAK - saxophone /Poland/
DINO SALUZZI - bandoneon /Argentina/
ANJA LECHNER – cello /Germany/
PIOTR WOJTASIK - trumpet /Poland/
MACIEJ SIKAŁA - saxophone /Poland/

Jazz ensemble under the direction of JOACHIM MENCEL
SEBASTIAN FRANKIEWICZ - percussion
ADAM KOWALEWSKI –double bass
JAN PILCH - percussion instruments
MARCIN ŚLUSARCZYK - saxophone
TOMASZ KUDYK - trumpet
MARTIN SCHABERL - guitar
JOACHIM MENCEL - piano

WARSAW BOYS’ CHOIR
BY THE MUSICAL UNIVERSITY OF FRYDERYK CHOPIN
SINFONIA VIVA ORCHESTRA
JAN KARPIEL "BUŁECKI" FOLK BAND

The concert "Love explained everything to me"
on the 29th of November 2008 at the Teatro Capranica in Rome

The cantata "Love explained everything to me" is a collection of chanting songs as well as instrumental compositions inspired by specific poems by Karol Wojtyła. The characteristic thing is the fact that some of the poems have the word “song" in their titles. The parts of Karol Wojtyła’s poetry, which served the artist as inspiration to create the cantata, belong to most intimate ones in the writings of our great Pole. Joachim Mencel – a distinguished pianist from Cracow, composer and arranger, has written music especially for this occasion, both music to the poems, filling their “missing" part, and instrumental music inspired by chosen poems of this great man. And as his songs are able to exist without music, they are also able to exist in a nonverbal way, played by great instrumental soloists. The whole cantata is related to jazz music, framed in symphonic orchestral sound, boys’ choir and goral folk band, which decisively widens the formula to a big instrumental and vocal form. It is an attempt at finding sacrum in jazz, at going back to the roots of jazz during revival meetings, where jazz and prayer were one.