About us   Places we visited   Band history

The cry of Banshee was heard for the first time on 23rd October Anno Domini 2004. On that very day our first concert was held and that very day we consider to be the official date our band came into being.

But before our first concert took place some specific and necessary events had to happen, leading to this tragic tragedy which changed our life. One by one: the band was set up by three persons – Paweł, Tomek and our Ania. Błażej joined the band thanks to his acquaintance with Paweł’s sister. Thanks to the RPG connections Przemek came into the possession of a whistle. The very Przemek called Łukasz’s sister right before the concert and Łukasz was offered the chance to play but got only three days for practicing a few dozens of tunes. Right before the concert Paweł said "goodbye" to the band and a guest performer Paulina joined playing the harp. On top of it was Justyna who lent us her vocal strings. Simple, isn’t it?

Banshee is an Autumn's child. Piotr, a vocalist, joind in November. In the following year, around March, Andrzej (bass, bodhran) did the same. Alas, he was substituted by Mateusz (bass) at the beginning of 2006. In the meantime, Tomek decided to try his luck in other music areas. A simple calculation proves that on Banshee’s second birthday there were 6 musicians: Ania Woźnica (violin/fiddle), Łukasz Bajorski (acoustic guitar, djembe, harmonica), Piotr Bielecki (vocal, acoustic guitar), Przemek Gałek (whistle, bodhran), Mateusz Kluza (bass guitar) and Błażej Zadwórny (bagpipes, keyboard, bodhran, irish spoons). So to sum up: Banshee is the music for your soul - and six pieces of candy for your eyes :o).

At the beginning of our journey we performed some small-scale concerts, often charity ones, just for the sake and pleasure of playing. We performed for example at a photo exhibition in the Popper Synagogue or in the Cracow Philharmonic Hall in a music programme for kindergarten children. We started our second year with a performance during “Wielka Orkiestra Świątecnej Pomocy” (an all-Poland Christmas charity enterprise) and we decided to take part in this noble event every year.

An import ant part of our activity is obviously playing in pubs. The satisfaction we get of it is a result of the fantastic contact with the audience and the joy we share. Our big stage performances were inaugurated by the concert in May 2005 at the wonderful Błonia in Kraków (a kind of meadow near the city centre; our own Hyde Park or Central Park, if you like). Then there was the summer and Międzybrodzie Bialskie – our first tour. Around that time we recorded our first demo CD where we placed five arrangements of some more and less popular pieces of Celtic culture music.

We celebrated our first birthday in October 2005 and we dare say that since then we started treating our performances more seriously. We had some new ideas. Thanks to this "driving force" our first single, "Star of Munster", came to life. It was recorded in a studio in the spring of 2006 together with a videoclip shot during ceilidh (Irish dancing workshops) in Rotunda (Kraków's student culture centre and concert hall). All that happened in March – the month when St. Paddy’s Day is celebrated, so it only facilitated Celtic music playing. Then we played a record number of concerts in such places as "Pod Jaszczurami" student club and "Stalowe Magnolie".

The motto of the summer holiday 2006 was: festivals! We played at Szantomierz in Sandomierz (an award for the best performance of a folk song) and during at Celtic Music Festival in Będzin (one of the best three bands of the festival). It was very creative and motivating. With this newly acquired zest for music making we started organizing a tour in western Poland and plans for the future were formed in our minds. What are those plans? A CD? Our own festival? A London-Dublin tour? The answers to the questions go beyond this story and they should be looked for in the future to which you are kindly invited.

written down in November 2006