Matragona

Matragona - a mountain in the West Bieszczady Mountains from which group's name originates. They play atmospheric, self-created music on numerous traditional instruments from all over the world.

Their debut performance was made in 1994 in the Sanok Cultural Centre, where they began their career. Since then not only have they been presenting their colourful music at various concerts and festivals all over Poland, but have also recorded for national radio and television programmes, created theatre music and conducted open workshops. Their debut album Budzenie góry [Wakening the Mountain, 1998] gained recognition in a national phonographic contest. The following one, a maxi single Tańce zmierzchu [Dances at dusk] was recorded in a monastery cellars in the Bielany district in Warsaw. The latest album, Trans-Silvaticus, was released in 2005. To its sound contributed 60 different instruments as well as the natural acoustics of Franciscan church in Sanok.

The musicians of the Orkiestra Jednej Góry [Orchestra of the One Mountain] draw their strength from the Matragona Mountain's forgotten legend, rediscovered by themselves for their musical fairyland. Because of playing on numerous instruments collected from all over the world, they try to gain the essential knowledge and abilities (e.g. by taking medieval music courses). The combinations in which the instruments are used, however, are not employed in the original musical cultures, hence the individual sound palette.

Music of the lost world... The music created by the group eludes simple definition. At many folk festivals it was described as an "aura folk", being placed on the edge of the genre. Matragona's music through its picturesque, nostalgic, at times even dreamy ambience, evokes a sound-track of a non-existent movie. It is not meant to an impersonal mass listener, proving impervious to commercial temptations and free of ideological justifications. It does, however invite the hearer to follow the path of forgotten values, as it emerges from the awe over surviving beauty of the world.