25-28 February 2016 (Thursday-Sunday)

In the Nets of Shanties
Sails, nets, harpoons, barrels… We’re setting off Around the world with fishermen – as the motto of the Shanties 2016 Festival dictates.
Fourteen concerts, three stages and – new this year – the St Catherine’s Church, around 40 ensembles and soloists from Poland, Belgium, Russia, the Netherlands and Norway: that's this year’s 35th International Sea Song Festival in a nutshell.
The old man and the sea
Life starts after fifty – we’ll find out more on 26 February. During the nighttime concert Fifty and Things Are Cool, we’ll see fifty (give or take) fifty-year-olds (give or take). Performers appearing at Rotunda include Irish Stew from the Netherlands, Formacja, Flash Creep, Klang and Trzecia Miłość. And of course there will be fifty-year-old-plus performers: Wojciech Dudziński, Krzysztof Jurkiewicz, Jacek Jakubowski, Sławomir Gołąb, Maciej Łuczak, Andrzej Korycki, Henryk “Szkot” Czekała, Grzegorz Tyszkiewicz, and Zbigniew Murawski. They bait us just like Santiago the fisherman from Ernest Hemingway’s story, and like all seasoned seamen they hope for a good catch. Will you get ensnared?
Choral singing in a church
For the first time in its history, the festival comes to the St Catherine’s Church in Kraków’s Kazimierz. The Gothic space will resound with traditional sea songs. The concert Tom Has Sailed Away to Hilo features the Men’s Shanty Choir “Zawisza Czarny” and the Norwegian Shanty Choir “Slogmaakane”. On 27 February we’ll discover that shanty-maniacs have voices as powerful as their hearts and arms.
This is 30
This year’s festival features a few anniversaries. The formations EKT Gdynia and Mechanicy Shanty are both celebrating 30 years of working together. The former commemorate the occasion on Saturday night at Studio, while the latter perform on Sunday at noon at Rotunda. Both groups promise not to get too maudlin or overwhelmed by recollections. Full steam ahead!
Glory days of fishing
Just twenty years ago, the Baltic was full of fishing boats. Not much is left of the glory days of Polish fishing, with dwindling numbers of people wanting to take on the noble but hard profession. Anyone who has tried their hand at commercial fishing will tell you it’s no easy trade. As the shanty says, fishermen had “a damn tough life full of toil and strife”. When there’s fish, there’s no sleep. Mealtimes shift to the oddest times of day and night – after all, the more we catch, the more we earn! And all this to the rhythm of sea and ocean waves, which can be wild. And then it’s Heave and Pull! Heave and Pull! That’s the title of the finale concert held on Sunday at Rotunda, featuring tales of the labour and toils of the fishermen’s trade.
Small fry
Of course the festival has something especially for the youngest sailors. As usual, the concerts for kids are led by the steadfast ensembles Klang and Zejman & Garkumpel. And let’s not forget about Nighttime Shantying at the Tawerna Żeglarska Stary Port. Finally, there will be plenty of accompanying events: sailing workshops, meetings with sea captains, film and slide screenings, exhibitions of maritime photos and paintings, and sailing fair. (Artur Jackowski, "Karnet" magazine)

Shanties 2016
25-28 February
Organiser: Hals Foundation
www.shanties.pl