Born in a Pandemic, Grown during Lockdown: How Kraków Music Began

A new year kicks-off! New resolutions and goals! The new 20s are in and by the end of February everything seems normal. Come March and an imminent crisis looms over the world. There’s a virus! It comes from China and has reached Europe! Italy is in a state of emergency! In Poland like everywhere else, people start crowding supermarkets and grocery stores to stock up on canned food and toilet paper. Before the end of March gathering restrictions apply and the general lockdown and shutdown of society changes our lifestyle overnight. All over Europe schools, universities, restaurants, bars, shops, museums and cultural venues begin to close or operate under strict schedule restrictions. (In memoriam parentheses: On March 29, a sad day, one of the greatest contemporary Polish composers, Krzysztof Penderecki, dies.) Mandatory masks. Is it all a hoax? Is the worse yet to come? People #stayathome, mobility is restricted and travel is banned. No more leisure promenades (except to walk the dog and buy food), holidays cancelled and tourism is no more.

This is when and how Kraków Music came up with its first project. Leading to the celebration of Piano Day 2020 on March 28, KM published a call for piano music submissions. Although not abundant, the response was good and allowed local musicians to connect with an audience in lockdown. Scotia Gilroy from Vladimirska shared “Paper BIrds” and a personal story about the song. Thymn Chase from Smingus sent the main theme for the Polish film “Bracia” directed by Szymon Jakubowski; Monika Kamińska from Arbuz Dust gave us a Jack White cover and a musical rendition of a poem by William Blake. My personal favourite is the progressive jazz composition “Morning Rain” (2020) by Artur Michalski. A serene backdrop of piano and atmospheric sounds to a few outbursts of seemingly chaotic drum riffs. 

Piano Day was the key and igniter of what followed. Social media was flooding with the stay-at-home hashtag as an online cacophony of musical expressions spilt over everyone’s feed. Solo musicians in their pyjamas, DJ bedroom sets, FB & YT music throwbacks posts, video montages of individual home recordings and the whatnot. We craved some order and focus and decided to encourage the use of the hashtag #HOUSEBOUNDMUSIC to agglutinate all the local music pouring out online from confinement. Following the same formula as with Piano Day, we concocted the Housebound Music Playlist. This time the response was much better and we gathered collaborations from artists such as Valky, Chłodno, Sold My Soul, Kopernikus Projekt and Galleons & Guns amongst others. 

We hope one day we’ll be able to thank all of them personally, but we’re confident that the best way to do so now is to encourage you to listen to the whole Housebound & Piano Day Playlists. After all, music is (was) for many the sound and key out of lockdown.

Even before the full shutdown, gigs started to be rescheduled or even cancelled. Local bands and artists saw their calendars suddenly emptying and soon, with all music venues closed, the Internet became the main outlet for live music. We saw the opportunity to organise our first live stream concert and decided to do so with Arbuz Dust, a Polish-Scottish band we’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with before and who had a gig cancelled on the same day.

Live music as an experience was under threat, and although a lot was happening online, it is an arena where muscling for attention is much harder. Acknowledging this fact set Kraków Music on a mission: to support and encourage local bands by providing a platform where they can promote and market their music for free. We believe in the value of community and social capital, as well as the power of synergy and collaboration. It’s not a new idea nor a groundbreaking scheme, but it is a localised and focused initiative and a constant effort. Moreover, live streaming services and projects were starting to boom, as well as new forms of cooperation and use of space. Restaurants and other non-conventional music venues are now using a music programme to amass clientele. Perhaps many of these trends will pass, but we believe some of them are worth rescuing to incorporate into a creative offer of live music that will benefit all, businesses, musicians and promoters.

I’ve never thought I would ever be behind the steering wheel of a bar, much less in charge of a live music programme. They’re both thrilling, engaging, demanding and tiring jobs. I was (am), however, lucky enough to have a few musician friends and know a few insiders in the bartending world. People to whom I will be forever indebted for their advice, support, encouragement and absolute honesty. 

Putting together a programme of concerts means balancing both sides of the equation: looking out for the interest of the venue while being respectful of the work musicians put into to be on stage. As someone working in marketing and directly affected by the forced shutdown of a music venue, I (as many others) experienced first hand the challenges imposed by a new reality: shorter opening hours, less clientele, fiercer competition and more admin work applying for grants and redefining goals and strategies. It wasn’t, however, all bad. Despite businesses running in a lower gear, positive things also came as a result: more will for cooperation and bartering, novel ways of using space and a general predisposition from many to be supportive and collaborative. The only way to survive was to move on together and move online for good. 

From a business perspective, Kraków Music is an online marketing agency that helps artists, venues and businesses in the music sector with the promotion of events, projects, products and joint initiatives. It is also a source of information about what’s on the local music calendar; and a virtual space to share ideas, opinions and news on all things music. At its core, however, it’s a shared love for music, an adamant belief in synergy and a reaffirmed faith in community. We thank you, Kraków, for it all.