All the Mazurkas of the World

Laskowioki (Left to right: Radosław Szewczyk - trumpet; Piotr Jonik - clarinet, singing; Jakub Sromek –first violin, singing; Amelia Duda - second violin, singing; Krystian Gołąb - basolia). Zdj. Mariusz Cieszewski

Nonchalant bustle and brimming anticipation filled the Praga-Południe cultural center in Warsaw prior to the finale of the Old Tradition competition. Fourteen up-and-coming folk music ensembles had been selected from thirty-two submissions to make their case before a large audience of connoisseurs and aficionados of Poland’s folk-music renaissance. Good humor vibrated through the crowd, as I squeezed past embroidered skirts, grandparents, and strollers, and joined my classmates, who were kind enough to save me a spot up front. (I’m sure that claiming an unearned seat in a crowded venue comes at a karmic cost, but the feeling is ecstatic.)

Chatter and chitter gave way to a charged silence, like that of a school auditorium during graduation, or a family dinner before a toast – in this case the musical toast that is the inaugural concert of  the festival-competition Wszystkie Mazurki Świata  (Eng: All the Mazurkas of the World), one of Poland’s largest folk music festivals held biyearly since 2010. Although winning a spot in the concert’s line-up is accomplishment in and of itself, the atmosphere was not without its touch of nerves. Making a lasting impression in front of such a wide swath of the genre’s listeners and cultural promoters can do much to elevate aspiring groups. To raise the stakes even higher, each year the audience votes to crown an evening’s victor.

“Mazurki” in the festival’s name refers to the triple-metre dances, which – along with the duple-metre, krakowiak – are central to Poland’s folk music tradition. And we certainly had our fill of dances. Two, five-part ensembles, Muzyka Laskowioki and Kapela z Ropczyckiego, set our feet tapping, while Maksymilian Czerwiński, an experienced heligonka teacher and musician from the Beskids proved more than capable of matching their verve on his own. The Aż do rana (Eng: until dawn) trio, featuring two hypnotic pedal accordions and a frame drum, took us North to the Kurpie region, while The Apostles carried us East, weaving Ukrainian and Jewish musical elements on the violin, frame drum/basolia, and homemade dulcimer.

Maksymilian Czerwiński (heligonka)

Laskowioki (Left to right: Piotr Jonik - clarinet, singing; Jakub Sromek - first violin, singing; Amelia Duda - second violin, singing) 

The Apostles (Serhii Postolnikov - dulcimer, violin)

Aż do rana (Left to right: Dawid Sutkowski - pedal accordion; Miłosz Maśkiewicz - pedal accordion; Wojciech Glinka - frame drum)

Kapela z Ropczyckiego (Left to right: Marcelina Bełzo - first violin, singing; Ewelina Stępień - Rzeszów dulcimer, Ola Napiórkowska - second violin)

The rich musical tapestry also included non-dance, vocal-instrumenal genres and a capella songs – a stunning solo performance by the Belarusian, Viktar Valko; forest and walking songs from the Kurpie region by Śpiewu Przyczyna; haunting religious melodies from resettled Poles by the duo Kurkowicz/Braszak; and songs from Gałki in the Mazowia region by the Warsaw-based group Funda. The evening’s youngest participants could be found in the choir-and-instrumental ensemble Młody OwCoK Band from Jabłonka, whose song arrangements and colorful costumes showed great care, and in Simejka, where ten-year-old Sofia Romaniuk valiantly held the stage alongside her older bandmates and introduced us to repertoire from the regions of Podolia and Polesia.

Viktar Valko

Młody OwCoK band from Jabłonka (Paweł Kubacka - first violin, singing)

Simejka (Left to right: Maksym Nakonecznyj - violin, singing; Mariana Markhel - violin, singing; Sofia

Roamniuk, singing; Marta Bodnar - frame drum, singing)

Kurkowicz/Braszak (Left to right: Dorota Kurkowicz, Piotr Braszak)

Śpiewu Przyczyna (Left to right: Maria Weronika Kmoch, Joanna Turek, Magdalena Samsel)

Funda (Left to right: Agnieszka Kalita, Łucja Pękala, Marta Gotfryd)

True to the global sentiment contained in the second half of the festival’s name (i.e. “of the world”) we had the pleasure of welcoming visitors from beyond Poland’s borders. The Belarussian singing ensemble, BaranÁ, made their way from Vilnius, Lithuania. Further still, Agatha Pradnik & Fer Monastier set the record by flying from Curitiba, Brazil – a city whose unique relationship to the Polish diaspora (the second largest after Chicago’s) stretches into the 19th century. On accordion and baraban, the duet cast Polish folk music in a mesmerizing Latin American hue. 

BaranÁ (Sviatlana Chakushka)

Agatha Pradnik & Fer Monastier (Left to right: Leticia Grockotzki Goularte - accordion; Fernanda Picanço Prokmann - baraban)

Running nearly three hours (an hour longer than planned) and seamlessly bleeding over into the evening’s dance party, spinning with obereks and kujawiaks, the concert never lost its collegial charm. As a festival volunteer, I happened to be eating a late dinner alongside The Apostles when Hanna Zhoholava, the group’s violinist, dashed into the cafeteria from the dancefloor: “...and you two down here, eating away! We won!!”

The Apostle, winners! (Left to right: Agata Weber - basolia, frame drum, baraban, singing; Serhii Postolnikov - dulcimer, violin; Hanna Zhohlava - violin, singing). Zdj. N. Vivas Nikonorow

A well-deserved prize, which they earned several times over again as the night’s festivities carried on into the early hours of the morning. (The group shared the night’s honor ex aequo with Funda.)

Folk dance party.  Zdjęcia Mariusz Cieszewski    

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Janusz Prusinowski, the founder of the festival Wszystkie Mazurki Świata

Wszystkie Mazurki Świata / Mazurkas of the World is a Warsaw festival devoted to traditional music, dance and song, centered on the living culture of the mazurka, oberek, kujawiak and polonaise. It brings together village musicians, urban folk bands, dancers, singers, craftsmen and instrument makers through concerts, workshops, dance parties, children’s events and the all-night Dance Night.

Centrum Promocji Kultury  Praga-Południe, Warszawa

April 22 – 25, 2026

Nicolas Vivas Nikonorow is a writer and cellist who received his BA in English from Yale University and is currently studying Musicology at the University of Warsaw.