Hello there! By creating music within the Polish traditional folk genre – also known as roots music – we passionately blend elements such as tradition, folk, modernity, and improvisation. We offer ourown unique and original interpretation of traditional music. Our repertoire draws from the musically rich regions of Poland, including Radom, Mazovia, Kuyavia, Podlasie, and Lublin. We create acoustic music, masterfully using instruments typical of traditional folk music, such as the violin, three-row accordion, drum, hammered dulcimer, folk bass, and the less traditional banjolele. Our repertoire includes lyrical and ritual songs, folk tunes, as well as kujawiaks, mazurkas, obereks, and polkas. Our music is full of vigor and energy, as well as lyricism and delicacy. We have recorded four albums to date. We have performed at major Polish festivals, including EthnoPort, Crossroads of Cultures Festival, Globaltica, Sounds of the North, Ethniesy Festival, Podlaska Oktawa Kultur, EtnoBaltica, Folkowisko, Czeremcha Festival, and WOMEX Expo 2017. Our performances have also taken us abroad to events such as Budapest Ritmo 2019 and Canadian Music Week 2020 in Toronto, as well as festivals in Spain, the United States, Slovakia, Belgium, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway.
In March 2021, our album The Bunch (Wiązanka) was recognized as one of the 10 Top of the World albums by the prestigious British Songlines magazine. In 2021, Wowakin was also awarded second prize in the Polish National Radio competition for the best Folk album of 2020. The Bunch has also placed in the top ten of the Transglobal World Music Chart multiple times.

In this project, we invite two great musicians to join our musical universe – Marta Maślanka and Piotr Zabrodzki. Thanks to their unique personalities and improvisational skills, the traditional music starts shimmering with the colors of avant-garde jazz and film music. Summertime album, released in 2024, is the fruit of our collaboration.

Marta Maślanka is a distinguished hammered dulcimer player and percussionist. Her atmospheric and refined dulcimer tones feature prominently in the soundtracks of numerous Polish and international films, including the famous Jankiel’s concert scene in Andrzej Wajda’s Pan Tadeusz, with music written by Wojciech Kilar. She works alongside some of Poland’s most renowned composers, such as Michał Lorenc, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, Krzesimir Dębski, Paweł Mykietyn, and Abel Korzeniowski. Piotr Zabrodzki is a jazz artist and avant-garde improviser, known for his sense of humor, his ability to break conventions, and his involvement in various musical projects. He plays obereks on synthesizers with WoWaKin, demonstrating his versatility in effortlessly moving between a range of musical genres, from improvised electro to folk and traditional sounds. He is a co-founder of several musical groups, including Cinq G and Warszawskie Combo Taneczne. As a multi-instrumentalist and composer, he has collaborated with global avant-garde icons such as Tatsuya Yoshida, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, and Clayton Thomas. He has toured promoting Polish culture in many countries, including Japan, the USA, Brazil, Korea, and China.

Our collaboration with Nina began with the recording of three songs for the soundtrack of the 1670 TV series. They blend trance music with the powerful, expressive voice of Nina Kodorska, fusing atmospheric film music with the vibrant energy of Polish traditional music. Dulcimer player Marta Maślanka joins us for the concerts throughout the project.

Nina Kodorska has been passionate about words and sound since childhood. She is a winner of numerous prestigious music festivals, including the Grand Prix Award at the legendary Szansa na Sukces TV program and the first prize at the National Polish Song Festival in Opole. She has collaborated with, among others, the orchestras of Adam Sztaba, Marcin Pospieszalski, and Tomasz Szymuś. She has performed with some of the biggest stars on the Polish and international music scenes, such as Urszula Dudziak, Kayah, Maryla Rodowicz, Natalia Kukulska, Karen Edwards, Michael Bolton, and Garou. Nina is the leader of the Czarnina band.

Folk Lamentations is a concert based on exquisite, historic Lenten songs, lesser-known, and collected in the Pelpiński Songbook. It includes remarkable examples of Baroque literature. These songs have penetrated into the living tradition of song and, surprisingly, have been preserved within it, still practiced in some regions of Poland to this day. The distinctiveness of Polish Lenten songs—their originality, emotional depth, and music preserving the features of the oldest musical traditions, unchanged for centuries—deserve to be discovered and recognized as an original musical phenomenon. Our aim is to reveal the beauty of these pieces and the exceptional emotional expression reflected in their texts. The voices of Justyna Piernik and Beata Oleszek blend urban sensibility with a rural repertoire and a profound understanding of the performance styles of different regions. They perfectly express both the musical depth and emotional richness, all while maintaining the traditional folk essence. Folk Lamentations seeks to adapt ancient folk songs, typically performed a cappella, into a concert setting, using voices and traditional instruments such as the violin, bass, dulcimer, alongside electronic sound processing. Advanced immersive sound techniques will create an illusion of space surrounding the listener from all directions. These techniques will also act as an expressive tool in the spectral dimension of the music, where both the direction and movement of sound hold musical meaning. Elements like the forest, meadow, church, and unconventional spaces that evolve over time, along with shifting reverbs and repetitions, willform essential parts of the pieces and songs.

Beata Oleszek is a traditional singer from Kocudza and a member of the Jarzębina folk group since 2000. She has contributed to many of the group’s significant achievements, including the Złota Baszta prize at the Polish Festival of Folk Bands and Singers in Kazimierz nad Wisłą (awarded in 2001, 2007, and 2011) and the Oskar Kolberg Prize. Oleszek is involved in numerous artistic projects both in Poland and abroad, and she also leads workshops on the traditional Kocudza singing style. Her solo album, Ło Matko kocheno (Oh, dear mother), features Kocudza songs accompanied by the late Maciej Kaziński on the suka biłgorajska. Oleszek performs and promotes a distinctive repertoire and style passed down through intra-family and intergenerational transmission.