Poland in Albania

The Rafał Sarnecki Quintet appeared at the Balkan Jazz Showcase 2026 in its original lineup: Rafał Sarnecki (guitar), Łukasz Poprawski (alto saxophone), Piotr Wyleżoł (piano), Wojciech Pulcyn (double bass), and Patryk Dobosz (drums). The program featured music from Sarnecki’s most recent album "A View From The Treetop", along with earlier compositions. The concert took place  at the Music School “Servete Maçi”, in the „Avni Mula” Hall.

The performance in Albania is part of the long-running international project JAZZ PO POLSKU “Around the World,” which promotes contemporary independent Polish music internationally. Today, the project has presented more than 250 events in 25 countries. This will be the fourth visit of a Polish jazz ensemble to Albania within the project. Previous editions featured performances by Ziemia (2023), Unleashed Cooperation (2024), and JAH Trio (2025).

The Rafał Sarnecki Quintet has been performing in its current lineup since 2019. The group’s music combines jazz with elements drawn from a wide range of musical styles in a playful and inventive way. Listeners can hear influences of country, metal, baroque music, boogie-woogie, and punk. Sarnecki’s compositions often rely on striking contrasts: classically inspired phrases intertwine with metal-style riffs, dissonant melodic lines are juxtaposed with simple, country chords, and contemporary jazz harmonies are set within boogie-woogie rhythms. These stylistic collisions give the band’s music its distinctive and recognizable character.

The Rafał Sarnecki Quintet exemplifies a group that creatively reinterprets the traditional language of jazz, bringing it freshness and new energy while remaining rooted in its heritage. The ensemble performs regularly both in Poland and internationally. Sarnecki himself is one of the few Polish musicians to have successfully established a career on the American jazz scene, where he lived and worked for over a decade. He has performed with artists such as Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, and Grażyna Auguścik, and from 2009 to 2019 he was a member of the acclaimed U.S. ensemble Lucas Pino No-Net Nonet.

As a bandleader, Sarnecki has toured extensively throughout North and South America and Europe, and has completed 20 concert tours in Asia, often as part of JAZZ PO POLSKU projects. He has released five albums of original music, three of which — Song From a New Place (2008), Cat’s Dream (2014), and A View From The Treetop (2022) — were nominated for Poland’s prestigious Fryderyk Awards.

The “Around the World” project is organized by the JAZZ PO POLSKU Foundation and co-financed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage through the Culture Promotion Fund. Partners of the concerts in Albania include the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Tirana and the Albanian Jazz Society.