Mikołaj
Trzaska

Saxophonist and clarinetist, co-founder of yass, today a valued improviser and composer of film music.

Mikołaj Trzaska (born in 1966 in Gdańsk) is one of the most important Polish saxophonists and bass clarinetists, as well as a valued composer of film music. He grew out of yass, an artistic movement of the turn of the 1980s and 1990s that contested the institutionalized current of Polish jazz. He was a co-founder of the formation Miłość, and in 1993 he formed his own group Łoskot.

Over time, Trzaska moved away from yass toward radical freely improvised music, becoming a partner of the world's leading improvisers, such as Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee and Ken Vandermark. He runs numerous projects, including the clarinet quartet Ircha and the Shofar Trio, in which he draws on the tradition of Jewish music.

In parallel, Trzaska built an outstanding body of work in film music, above all in collaboration with Wojciech Smarzowski, for whom he composed the music to the films Dom zły, Róża, Wołyń and Kler. For the music to the film Wołyń he received the Polish Film Award Orzeł.