Wschód Kultury – Different Sounds (Inne Brzmienia)
July 3–6, 2025
Lublin, Błonia under the Castle
Free entry
During this year’s edition of the Wschód Kultury – Inne Brzmienia Festival, taking place in Lublin on July 3–6, audiences will experience the results of the collaboration between the festival organisers, Cryptic Glasgow, and the Scottish Sonica Festival, realised as part of UK/Poland Season 2025. Open-air sound installations, an audiovisual concert inspired by space exploration and 18th-century poetry, as well as a joint Polish-Scottish music project rooted in local vocal traditions will all be presented in Lublin.
As part of the UK/Poland Season 2025 programme in Lublin, the following projects will be showcased:
Ela Orleans – a Polish composer and audiovisual artist based in Glasgow and Paris. Her professional work spans a broad spectrum, including audiovisual projects, contemporary multimedia, composing for film, television, and opera, participation in contemporary art exhibitions, academic work, and regular concert performances. She has performed at prestigious venues such as MoMA in New York, TATE Modern in the UK, the Venice Biennale, and the Sonica Glasgow festival. In Lublin, Orleans will present to the Inne Brzmienia audience one of her flagship projects – the acclaimed Night Voyager. Musically based on the sounds of the synthesizer, theremin, violin, and vocals, the piece incorporates archival NASA recordings from the 1969 Apollo moon mission. The artist combines the astronauts’ emotions with excerpts from Night Thoughts, a series of elaborate poetic reflections written by Edward Young in 1742. Orleans focuses on the broader significance of the moon voyage and Young’s exploration of mortality, time, and human folly. Although largely forgotten today, Night Thoughts was once hailed as “the most magnificent and richest poetry ever created by human genius.”
Dopey Monkey and guests – a Scottish band founded by euphonium player Martin Lee Thomson and tuba player Danielle Price. Their music balances funk, jazz, experimental, folk, and classical genres. The duo often pushes beyond the traditional boundaries of their instruments. Since its formation in 2015, the group has relentlessly explored its artistic possibilities through projects involving various media and performance formats. Dopey Monkey's performances are intentionally non-standard, highlighting their inquisitive and experimental spirit.
For the Wschód Kultury – Inne Brzmienia festival and the UK/Poland Season 2025 project, Dopey Monkey has created a special collaboration with artists from Lublin’s Zielona Girlanda collective and multi-instrumentalist Tomasz Graczyk.
After joint workshops in 2024, the artists co-created a unique performance blending musical genres and drawing inspiration from folk music, nature, and storytelling traditions. In addition to tuba and euphonium, the project features tenor and soprano saxophones and vocals.
During Inne Brzmienia, the Polish-Scottish ensemble will present pop-up performances in various locations across Lublin. Unlike traditional street performances, the group will move with a portable “concert space” inspired by places of respite such as bothies (basic shelters, usually unlocked and freely available for use, typical in remote mountain areas of Scotland, Northern England, Ulster, and Wales) and chapels. Viewers are invited to pause, step inside, and experience rich soundscapes in an intimate setting.
Sing the Gloaming – a visual and sound installation by Professor Simon Kirby and artists/musicians Tommy Perman and Rob St. John. The starting point for this remarkable project is the word “ghlei” – an ancient term meaning “light” that dates back 5,000 years. From this root word comes a variety of related terms, including the title gloaming. Sing the Gloaming is a series of sound sculptures placed in open, green spaces. The sounds and vocalisations (performed by leading Scottish vocalists including Aidan Moffat, Emily Scott, SHHE, Hanna Tuuliki, and Andrew Wasylyk) harmonise beautifully with the surrounding natural environment, offering audiences a truly original artistic experience. This project, devoted to light, language, and landscape, encourages audiences to explore a world of sound at their own pace.
During the festival, in addition to interacting with the installation, audiences will have the opportunity to attend a talk by Rob St. John about the creative process behind the work.
Who else will perform at Inne Brzmienia?
- Voivod – the legendary metal band from Canada, active continuously since 1982. Voivod holds an important place in the history of global thrash metal. The group’s breakthrough came a few years later when they pivoted towards progressive metal, becoming one of the genre’s most influential bands.
- The EX – a Netherlands-based icon of European counterculture and one of the leading punk collectives in alternative music history.
- A Place to Bury Strangers – a renowned American trio playing alternative rock with elements of noise, shoegaze, post-punk, and free improv.
- The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis – an instrumental trio from the USA, formed by musicians from the legendary band Fugazi. For this project, they are joined by the acclaimed saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis.
- PETBRICK – a powerful duo made up of Wayne Adams, head of London’s Bear Bites Horse Recording Studio, and Iggor Cavalera, the iconic drummer known from Sepultura and Cavalera Conspiracy.
- Maria W. Horn – a Swedish artist and composer for whom sound is the core of her creative exploration.
- Butch Kassidy – a post-rock crew from London, one of the biggest emerging hopes on the European heavy guitar music scene.
About the Inne Brzmienia Festival
Each year, the Wschód Kultury – Inne Brzmienia festival invites audiences on a musical journey to a land of sounds that defy convention. It encourages the discovery of artists who push genre boundaries, address important issues, or simply deliver emotions and experiences that linger long after the last note fades.
In a world where music festivals often fall hostage to popularity metrics and one-season stars, Inne Brzmienia offers a space for seekers – those longing for authentic impressions and musical revelations. It’s a safe haven for music lovers and an opportunity to meet artists from around the world for whom music is a vital form of expression.
This is the 18th edition of Lublin’s Inne Brzmienia, organised by Warsztaty Kultury, and the 12th edition within the Wschód Kultury framework – a project run by the National Centre for Culture, funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and implemented in three cities in eastern Poland: Lublin, Białystok, and Rzeszów.
Admission to the festival remains free of charge, with more announcements coming soon!
More information about the festival can be found at: www.innebrzmienia.eu and https://nck.pl/projekty-kulturalne/projekty/wschod-kultury
Festival organisers: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, National Centre for Culture, City of Lublin, Warsztaty Kultury in Lublin
Wschód Kultury – Inne Brzmienia is a proud advocate of gender equality in the music industry as part of the Keychange network.