Pianist Leszek Możdżer Jazzes It Up

On the 18^th of January, 2017, the students of IHS had the privilege of meeting Mr. Leszek Możdżer, a world renowned Polish jazz pianist, music producer and film music composer. He started his formal training in classical piano at the age of five. He graduated with honours from the Instrumental Faculty of the Academy of Music in Gdansk. He is a winner of many music and culture awards, and has collaborated with various musicians worldwide.

Mr. Możdżer’s performance at IHS was his first ever performance in India. He played a variety of pieces spanning over different time periods and genres. He started off with a slow piece, explaining the evolution of the piano, along with Pythagoras’s contributions to the formation of the octave. He then played a piece titled “Svantetic”, composed by the late Krzysztof Komeda, a famous jazz pianist in Poland and one of his inspirations. With simple examples dominant and tonic chords, he then explained to us how the chord progressions in classical music work, and its connection to jazz. In his last piece, called “Suffering”, a historic piano piece, he taped the strings in order to give the sound a dampened staccato effect (where the sound sounds like the strings have been plucked). His performance was nothing short of brilliant.