Piotr Wiese

composer, pianist, and music producer

Poland

Author

About

Piotr Wiese – independent composer, pianist, and music producer based in Warsaw. Although Piotr main focus is autonomous piano music, he also composed for film and theater. (Documentary 'IRMA INEICHEN - memories of Paris 1951-1955', Musical 'Pinokio'). He frequently releases with modern-classical labels such as Ambient Fruits (Strange Fruits sublabel), Sonder House, Blue Spiral Records.

'The piano of Piotr wanders to and fro, but always seems to blossom into an ethereal soundscape.' - Santa Rosa Records

'His phrasing allows for the right kind of air and space between each new development. It’s wonderful.' - EarToTheGround Music

Piotr took the first piano lesson at the age of 8. He attended several music schools in Poland – The Institute of Music in Leszno, The Academy of Music in Poznań, The Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. There he studied composition under prominent, polish composer – prof. Zbigniew Bargielski (Nadia Boulanger pupil). In 2016 he graduated from The Music Department at The University of Bristol, UK (Master's Degree studies in composition with prof. John Pickard).

Piotr Wiese's debut album Questioning Infinity – set of short piano concertos composed during his year and a half stay in Berlin was released independently in 2014. Other independent releases from 2018 - Wiese's second full-length album Continuum along with two piano solo EP's: Unsustained Triptych, Vol. 1 and Sustained Triptych, Vol. 1 - turned out to be a great success.

Now his music has been streamed over a million times around the world and it brings the attention of a still greater audience.

Sheets

Interview

What does music mean to you personally?

Music means to me a lot. A lot more than I could write. So maybe to not to make it meaningless it is better not to start writing.

Do you agree that music is all about fantasy?

Not really. It is more about emotion. We could fantasize about a universe without music, could we not? But could we think seriously of music that does not evoke the slightest emotion? In other way round: we could fantasize about wonderful concert we will be a listener on and then a pianist play without passion.

If you were not a professional musician, what would you have been?

A poet, writer, or philosopher. In any case, I would create and think of what was created.

The classical music audience is getting old, are you worried about the future?

Maybe the classical music audience is getting old because classical music itself is getting old and perhaps even weak in comparison to what it was before? (Please refer to my answer to the first question). The whole society is getting older. I'm more concerned about it than about classical music which has shown many times that it could thrive as well as musicians. The other thing is that nowadays you do not need to compose operas before the tenth birthday as Mozart did. You can be 75 and have a major breakthrough with a classical piano piece you wrote. The perspective of age has changed dramatically. I think that the time is now more on our side. :)

What do you envision the role of music to be in the 21st century? Do you see that there is a transformation of this role?

Certainly. Transformation or even more drastically - degradation. Generally speaking, music has been degraded – taken from concert halls to elevators and supermarkets. I used to live vis a vis Lidl supermarket. I can bet that they play more jazz music than Philharmonie. Thanks to the developed world of streaming and invention of so popular playlists now music became nothing more than a „nice addition“ to our day by day. I bet there is a popular playlist with classical music for jogging, classical music for reading, classical music for sleeping, for relaxing, for dancing, for working in the garden, for cleaning the kitchen, for walking the dog, for classical music haters but there is not a playlist „A classical music for listening to a classical music“. I mean that before, music was more about music. Now the music should always be „for something“. Digitalization of music (making vibration of air a sequence of 0-zeros and 1-ones) made it so virtual that now you do not even have to get a physical copy of cd or vinyl. There is nothing physical. Before you could shake the hand of a musician after a recital, in the last century you could at least grab a vinyl or cd and listen at home the music you wanted to listen contemplating, now all you can do is hit play with your thumb and get a random mix of music for „anything“. If something is for anything it is also for nothing. Of course, this is just a generalization, a global trend. Where does it lead? I already saw a robot playing Bach suite on a digital instrument.

Do you think that the musician today needs to be more creative? What is the role of creativity in the musical process for you?

I believe that today anyone can make music. That is why it is so simplified. The music represents the average level of all people who create it. The more people the lower the average... Simple as this. You hit one button on a keyboard and the whole orchestra is playing a note. Before you should at least have the imagination, now you hit a button and you can listen to whatever instrument you want. You hit one button on a drum machine and you can call yourself a producer of electronic music. If you hit three one after another you are probably an experimenting niche electronic music producer. I am just joking. But there is a bit of bitter truth in most jokes. Answer: Generally you do not need to be more creative to be a musician nowadays. I do not understand the second subquestion. Hmm... I can only answer: The role of creativity in the musical process for me is the same as breathing in the process of living.

Do you think we as musicians can do something to attract the younger generation to music concerts? How would you do this?

Of course, we can. Your channel is a great example. You use a medium that is also for a younger audience. They can find you on social media etc. To get to them you have to be where they are. Sadly but truly, they are on the web, social media, streaming services etc. I had the privilege to write the music for musical „Pinocchio“ mostly for children and teenagers. When you combine good orchestral music with some words sung, some nice costumes, interesting story, dance, some light effects here and there. You can really see magic. I had a really pleasant experience listening to hundreds of youngsters laughing out loud and screaming to the „almost classical“ music. When they are young we should show them that music can be fun. Maybe we should engage more younger people. Organising concerts where so to say famous pianist plays in a duo with a young so-called instapianist. It would certainly draw the attention of the younger generation.

Tell us about your creative process. What is your favorite piece (written by you) and how did you start working on it?

Most often it all starts from an improvisation at the piano. Sometimes the melody comes to me in my sleep, under the shower, sometimes (it is going to be silly) my dog barks or snores in a certain frequency. It resembles two or three notes and it can as well start a composing process.

Can you give some advice for young people who want to discover classical music for themselves?

Follow your heart. Do not listen to what adults say. Find one piece of classical music you like. Find who composed it. Dig his/her music.

Do you think about the audience when composing?

No, but I think about the audience before and after composing.

What projects are coming up? Do you experiment in your projects?

There are a lot of things going on. New piano music coming (24 Jan I will have my word on a compilation of great piano composers released by Sonder House), a bigger piano EP, and something completely new. I am slowly moving towards synthesizers and a mix of classical and electronic music. I am also going to experiment in a completely new music project in a genre as far from classical music as far you can get.