Concert on the ICC Balcony as Part of the 16th Edition of the Romanian Culture Festival

On May 16 and 17, the ICC and Kraków’s Main Market Square will transform into a unique musical stage. The balcony of our institution will host the concert “The Broken Sound of Krakow,” referencing the city’s intangible heritage. The bugle call will serve as the starting point for a musical performance by Petre Ionuțescu and Doctorul Sinteză. The event is organized as part of the 16th edition of the Romanian Culture Festival.

May 16 and 17, 2026, 21.00

Performers: Petre Ionuțescu (trumpet) & Doctorul Sinteză (Alexandru Pascu and Cristian Văduva)

During the concert on the ICC balcony, organized by our institution in cooperation with the Romanian Cultural Institute in Warsaw, the artists will blend electronic music with jazz and improvisation. The choice of the trumpet as the concert’s main instrument references the tradition of the bugle call. The melody, which abruptly breaks off, preserving the memory of the trumpeter warning the city of a Mongol invasion, becomes the central metaphor of the project: a discontinuous sound, an interrupted signal, merges with suspended memory. It is precisely this breakdown of sound that the title “The Broken Sound of Krakow” illustrates and that defines the musical dramaturgy of the performance. The sound of the trumpet begins as a pure acoustic gesture and is then electronically processed, causing it to crack, multiply, and transform into entirely new, unexpected timbres.

Petre Ionuțescu, one of Romania’s most acclaimed contemporary trumpeters, brings to the performance the expressive power of both the acoustic and processed sounds of the trumpet, developing themes that stem from memory, signal, and improvisation. Engaging in a constant dialogue with the trumpet, Doctorul Sinteză plays a key role in creating the core of live electronic music, utilizing specialized equipment, live sound processing, and film sound design. He takes on trumpet parts, transforming them into pulsations, textures, suspended harmonies, and rhythmic structures, developing the idea of “broken sound” within the contemporary language of electronic music. In this way, the jazz element naturally extends into experimental electronics, ambient, abstract rhythms and soundscapes.

The concert will be one of the highlights of the Romanian Culture Festival in Kraków, which will take place May 14–17, 2026. The ICC is once again involved in co-organizing the festival and promoting Romanian culture. During the 16th edition of the festival, in addition to the concert at the ICC, a series of events is also planned at other institutions, including the New Romanian Cinema Review at the Pod Baranami Cinema, a performative reading of the play “Disappearances” by Elise Wilk at Cricoteka, and a meeting with writer Oleg Serebrian at the Potocki Palace.

Detailed program of the 16th Romanian Culture Festival