# Anna Maria Jopek is original, unique, different … Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/12/14/anna-maria-jopek-is-original-unique-different-video/
- Published: 2017-12-14T00:04:53+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**14.12. – Happy Birthday !!! ”I couldn’t think of anything more inspiring, motivating
and ear opening than working with Pat. He’s been my first and most important mentor
for years, but to actually make music with him was the most thrilling experience
in my life…” – Anna Maria Jopek commented on their project.**

“Anna Maria Jopek and Friends with Pat Metheny: Upojenie” – the unique, one of the
kind tribute to the master composer, guitarist, 15 time Grammy Award Winner became
an instant classic, selling over 80,000 copies in thirty days.

The Universal recording artist is a classically trained pianist and graduated from
Chopin’s Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland. After briefly studying in Manhattan
School of Music’s Jazz Department Anna decided not to play Mozart concertos anymore
and trade her beloved Ravel for Keith Jarrett. Philharmonic Hall for a small, smoky
clubs and theatres.

“Please do not file my music under jazz” – Anna Maria Jopek says, though. “Nor under
pop, folk…whatever. I embrace a lot of influences. Jazz is by far the most important
in its freedom, its harmony and its sense of time, but I was brought up with the
old Polish folk songs. So I’m kind of rooted here in all these Slavic landscapes
and sounds”.

With 10 albums of her own Anna Maria Jopek performed and recorded with all the important
artists in Poland including numerous concerts and recordings with an ECM-based trumpeter
Tomasz Stańko. During the Jazz Jamboree International Festival 40th Anniversary 
Gala in 1998 she performed with the one of the greatest jazz musicians of our time:
Joe Lovano. In 2003 at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, invited by the First Family
Anna gave a small recital broadcasted live and dueted with the pop icon, former 
King Crimson frontman, Gordon Haskell.

Although she plays open air gigs for 5,000 fans, as happened in Warsaw in June 2001
and 8,000 in Augustów in July 2003, Anna prefers an intimate setting to a huge concert
hall and performs about 100 concerts each year, from Toronto to Vienna, London to
Berlin. Yet her Carnegie Hall appearance on January 4, 2004, remains one of the 
most cherished and memorable thrills of her professional life.

Yes, she has been given awards, including Michel Legrand’s Personal Award in Witebsk
in 1994, not to mention literally all of the Polish prestigious awards and Gold 
and Platinum records. Nevertheless Anna Maria Jopek is known for saying: “Music 
itself is the highest award for me. And the greatest challenge. With so many questions
remaining to be answered”.

Let’s leave the last word to Pat Metheny: “Anna is original, unique, different. 
She?s brave, she’s modest, she’s open. She’s a great musician. What she’s been doing
all her life is just trying to play the best notes. Trying to sound good. In that
particular sense she’s a lot like me and that’s why I decided to work with her. 
Because she just cares for the music”.

![Image result for Anna Maria Jopek pat metheny](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/
FJLN7_FaN04/maxresdefault.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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