PORTRAITS | Adam Bałdych Quintet - Instytut Pileckiego

“Portraits” is a moving story told through sound, in which jazz meets history and individual fates intertwine with the collective experience.

The project was created by Adam Bałdych, an outstanding composer and violin virtuoso, in collaboration with the Pilecki Institute. It is an attempt to use music to close the distance to the difficult experiences of witnesses and victims of the Second World War, and at the same time to pay tribute to them. The album was created as part of the celebrations of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War.

The Latin word protrahere means “to bring to light,” and this is exactly what Adam Bałdych has done with the emotions hidden in the accounts of witnesses of the Second World War. The artist drew on archival materials from the Pilecki Institute and created music that conveys what is difficult to express in words.

“Portraits” consists of 17 compositions that bring out and convey emotions hidden in archival testimonies in an extraordinary way. The album combines elements of jazz, classical music, and traditional Polish music.

“As an institute that researches and collects archives on German and Soviet totalitarianism, we were looking for a way to ensure that these stories would not only appeal to scholars and scientists, but would also reach a wide and diverse audience. It is a matter of the phenomenon of experience. Stories become close to us with the aid of the emotions they evoke. And it was precisely this emotional component that became the source of the decision to undertake the project with Adam Bałdych, who has been involved in musical improvisation for years. We wanted him to bring out the content hidden in these stories, ask questions of himself, and confront these stories,” said Jakub Kiersikowski, the originator of the project from the Pilecki Institute.

Portraits of emotions

“Work on the compositions was very intense. As an artist, I could not remain indifferent to these stories. Although I knew them from school and from my grandparents’ retellings, I belong to a generation that is distanced from this kind of content, but here they evoked a whole range of emotions in me. The music poured out on its own,” Adam Bałdych said.

Calling for peace

In interviews promoting the album, the artist emphasized that he did not want to calm listeners with this album, but rather to stimulate their emotions and evoke a certain unease in them. The album is a kind of anti-war manifesto, a clear and noticeable appeal for an end to conflicts such as the one taking place just beyond our eastern border. The compositions evoke a variety of wartime experiences that are well known to victims of military interventions both in the 20th century and in the modern day: dilemmas in the face of difficult choices, the pursuit of happiness, suffering and loss, and the longing for freedom.

“I received materials that are notes, content that I began to assimilate. I read the stories of people who were put in situations where I don’t know how I would have behaved in their shoes. And this encounter with the authentic history of these people evoked a lot of emotions in me and brought back the feeling that we ourselves are struggling with various threats today. (...) These stories allowed me to bring out what I am experiencing today, they asked questions – what does this anxiety mean for me? What are these times that are changing so quickly?” the violinist explained.

The Institute provided the musician with film recordings of witnesses to history, scans of testimonies from the Chronicles of Terror online database, as well as research materials on the activities of the Ładoś Group (a joint operation by Polish diplomats residing in Bern and Jewish communities, whose aim was to save Jews from the Holocaust, which became the topic of an exhibition by the Pilecki Institute – more). The topics of the accounts referred to pacification in Michniów, the hiding of Jews by Poles, the Wola Massacre, and the role of the camp orchestra in KL Auschwitz, among others. Selected accounts from “Witnesses to the Age” concerned the deportation of Poles to Siberia, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, the German camp for children in Łódź, and the pacification of Dąbrowa Dolna. Adam Bałdych supplemented his research with the memoirs of composer Szymon Laks, published in 1967, entitled “Gry Oświęcimskie” (“The Auschwitz Games”).

“Portraits” by the Adam Bałdych Quintet – a new way of telling stories about the past

The album presents 17 musical compositions. The pieces evoke a variety of wartime experiences that are well known to victims of military interventions both in the 20th century and in the modern day: dilemmas in the face of difficult choices, the pursuit of happiness, suffering and loss, and the longing for freedom. Adam Bałdych’s compositions depict man as he is: equally prone to chaos and destruction as he is to creating beautiful, sublime things.

The first public performance of the composition took place on 21 September 2025, on International Peace Day, at the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of Polish Radio in Warsaw (more about the event). A few days later (25 September), Adam Bałdych and his band played at St. Elisabeth-Kirche in Berlin (more about the event). Another opportunity to hear a live performance of songs from the album “Portraits” was the grand opening of the new headquarters of the Pilecki Institute on Sienna Street in Warsaw in September 2025.

The CD and vinyl versions of the album can be purchased at the Pilecki Institute bookstore (click).

Music videos

The album “Portraits” is accompanied by six music videos.
„Protest song”

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