Candlelight Concerts in Gdansk - Programme and Dates

Three Programmes, Three Kinds of Music

Playing every day in one hall gives us something a touring promoter never has: you don't have to wait for the one date in town. You can choose not only the concert but the time of day — and each of the three programmes is built for a different hour and a different audience.

I like Chopin — daily at 7 pm, 60 minutes

A recital that is also a story. Before each piece the pianist sets out its background: what was happening in Chopin's life at the time, and where this particular music came from. That makes the evening work even for someone who has never been to a piano recital — you need to know nothing beforehand to leave feeling you understood something.

The programme includes the Mazurkas Op. 24 and 33, the Études Op. 10 and 25 with the "Revolutionary", the Polonaise in A major Op. 40, the Ballade in F major, the Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2, the Preludes Op. 28 and the Funeral March from the Second Sonata. Alongside Chopin you will hear Beethoven, Schumann, Debussy, Mozart and Rachmaninoff, for a wider sense of the period. The pianist plays a slightly different programme each day, so no two evenings are the same.

I like Queen — at 8:30 pm, 60 minutes

The same cellar, the same piano, a different hero. The hall that breathes Chopin every day trades Fryderyk for Freddie for one evening: Queen's greatest songs in piano arrangements by Phillip Keveren, performed by Maciej Łobos.

No amplifiers and no stadium — instead fifty people within arm's reach, where "The Show Must Go On" sounds nothing like it does on the record. A later hour and a lighter mood than the Chopin recital; a good choice for an evening that begins after dinner.

Musical Lands — Saturdays and Sundays at 3 pm, 45 minutes

A concert for children, and not the sit-quietly-for-an-hour kind. Every young listener is given their own Musical Passport at the door, and spends the next 45 minutes travelling from land to land — solving musical riddles and completing missions along the way.

We play the music children already know: The Lion King, Frozen, "We Don't Talk About Bruno", Pirates of the Caribbean, Super Mario Bros., KPop Demon Hunters and plenty more. The afternoon hour means the concert fits into the day rather than breaking it up — and it is one of the few ideas for a rainy afternoon in Gdansk with a child that doesn't end in a shopping centre.

Where We Play

Every concert takes place at one address: Rajska 4C in Gdansk, in a cellar arranged especially for these evenings. The hall seats up to 50 people, so the furthest chair is closer to the piano than the front row in most concert halls.

This is the city centre itself — six minutes on foot from Gdansk Central Station and a quarter of an hour's walk to Długi Targ.