The idea of the festival "radical Polish culture" was born as a result of observing a new phenomenon on the Polish music scene, which can provide an excellent foundation for building a modern - rooted and open at the same time - identity. We are talking about artists who combine - treated with passion and expertise - the repertoire and performance techniques of archaic rural traditional music with the compositional and improvisational practices of the modern and post-modern avant-garde, "classical", jazz or electronic.

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The slogan "radical Polish culture" is, of course, a reference to "radical Jewish culture" - a local (New York-based) avant-garde movement that, at the turn of the century, achieved, under the leadership of John Zorn, unprecedented success, radiating all over the world, including Poland, where it became a staple of the new Jewish music movement. In addition to the marketing aspect, there is also great ideological potential in "radical Polish culture." The music presented as part of our festival can become a model of a new Polish identity and an antidote to the unhealthy and often artificially fuelled polarisation of Polish society. Our radicalism is radical rootedness (after all, "radix" is Latin for "root") and radical openness to the phenomena and challenges of the contemporary globalised world.

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