WOAK Orchestra Vabank

Do you make music for pleasure? Do you play a brass instrument of some kind and want to develop your skills with a group of passionate and energetic people who are united by music? Join the WOAK Vabank Orchestra!

Currently, the orchestra has more than 40 people of various ages and stage experience. The band is not afraid of experimentation. The musicians are going beyond the pattern and breaking the old-fashioned image of a brass band. Although the core of the instrumentarium is still the brass – flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, saxhorns, trombones and tubas – the sound is enriched by various percussion instruments and a rhythm section. The instrumentalists take a creative approach to their stage image and turn each of their performances into unusual, sometimes even avant-garde artistic activities.

The entire ensemble is kept in check by Waldemar Urbanski, the Kapellmeister and conductor. It is he who makes sure that the band’s repertoire includes original arrangements and instrumentation of both well-known standards and current hits. Whether the WOAK Vabank Orchestra plays in a small hall or during a large outdoor event, the audience is always in high demand. There have been events where the band played for a crowd of several thousand.

WOAK’s Vabank Orchestra was formed in April 2023 as a result of the merger of the Brass Band operating at the Provincial Cultural Animation Center and the Vabank Orchestra, which had been operating in Aleksandrów Kujawski since 2015. Since then it has been a new artistic ensemble: the WOAK Vabank Orchestra.

For whom.
Meetings open to anyone interested from the age of 12 playing an instrument.

When and where.
Tuesdays and Fridays from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. at WOAK – 75-77 Kosciuszko Street (5th floor)

Price:
60 zł – normal ticket
PLN 30 – reduced ticket (for commuters from Aleksandrów Kujawski)
3 PLN – student ticket, 60+20 PLN/month ticket

How to sign up?
Send an email to waldemar.urbański@woak.pl or call 56 652 27 55.

The Brass Band of the Provincial Center for Cultural Animation was founded in 1987, with Zenon Studziński and Marek Kubiak as its first artistic supervisors. From 1990 to 2004 the orchestra’s Kapellmeister was Edward Ceglarek, and it was mainly due to his efforts that the ensemble reached a high artistic level. In 2004, Jerzy Derkowski took over the artistic direction and held the position until the end of 2022. During this time, the orchestra repeatedly took part in regional and supra-regional competitions and reviews, more than once winning the highest laurels.

The orchestra has performed throughout Europe, including Denmark, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia and Belgium.