Folk Music in Zakopane, Where Music Fills the Streets

The folk music in Zakopane, where music fills the streets night after night, was the main reason for including the charming mountain town in Southern Poland on our yearlong global grand tour. Snowboarding was also a motivation for returning for Terence, who is also a musician, but for both of us, the exuberant live folk music, highlander culture, and hearty food were the major draw. And it should be your’s too! While snowsports abound, the music culture is an even bigger appeal.

Every night and any night of the week in Zakopane, a mountain town around 100 kilometres south of Kraków in Poland, not far from the Slovakia border, you can stroll down the cobblestone main street and drop into the rustic restaurants and bars to find spirited folk music being expertly played by traditional local bands.

The quartets and quintets usually consist of a few fiddles and a cello, and maybe there’ll also be a double bass, bagpipes, and and/or local stringed instruments called gesle and zlobcoki. There is a lead singer, often male, always with a powerful voice, although other band members will support him. When larger groups perform at festivals, women will also sing, and there’ll be folk dancing.

In some strange way, listening to the folk music in Zakopane felt like returning ‘home’, to my grandparents ‘home’, for me. I have a little Polish heritage on my mother’s side of the family, which is Russian-Ukrainian. My grandfather identified as Russian, while my grandmother was born in a village in the Odessa area during the Russian Empire, on the eve of the Revolution, in what is now Ukraine.

However, the travel documents of my great-grandmother, my mother’s grandmother, Daria, state that she was born in Łuck, Poland, which had a Ukrainian population at the time. An ancient Slavic settlement, historically contested by Russia, Lithuania and Poland, Łuck is now Lutsk in Western Ukraine, a six-hour drive from Zakopane.

Spending a few hours in one of Zakopane’s restaurants transports me back to my childhood and young adulthood in Sydney, Australia – to the Sunday feasts of Russian-Ukrainian food at my grandparents home that evolved into dinner, and the mouth-watering spreads that my baboushka would serve up, where the star attraction was the boiled pelmeni and vereniki, cousins to Poland’s pierogi.

The supporting act to the feasting and lively conversation that went late into the night would be my papa’s ‘entertainment’. This would alternate between him changing vinyl records like a greying DJ – anything from Tchaikovsky to Cossack folk music – and, late in the evening, his own performances on the piano accordion. Tears would often accompany those…

And in Zakopane, melancholy tears would occasionally form in my own eyes. Why? Because Zakopane’s special brand of vibrant folk music, known as ‘highlander music’, wasn’t so far removed from the folk music that my grandfather played way back in the day.

Zakopane’s ‘highlanders’, an ethnic group from Poland’s southern Tatra Mountains called the Podhale Gorale, originated from 15th century Polish, Czech, Vlach, Slovak, and, yes, Ukrainian shepherds. Over centuries, these groups developed their own cultures, dialects, music, costumes, and also cuisine, that had much in common with each other.

While the band members wear traditional costumes, it’s not for the tourists and the scene is not touristy. There are tourists, Polish and foreign (especially from Russia and Ukraine), but there are always plenty of locals. Often also shedding a tear or two.

The costumes are not intended to entice the tourists in, but simply reflect the pride that the Zakopane highlanders have in their unique culture and folk music and their desire for it to continue to survive and thrive.

The men wear white shirt, black waistcoat, perhaps a felt cape, felt trousers featuring embroidered patterns, a wide leather belt, and moccasins that they call kierpce. The women wear floral blouses and flowing skirts, a bonnet or floral scarf, and moccasins.

While the costumes add to the charm, the passionate music is what it’s all about. While most bands perform the very traditional folk songs popularised by the family band, Trebunie Tutki, from the village of Biały Dunajec just outside of Zakopane, some add modern or classical twists — many of the more accomplished musicians we talked to were classically trained.

Even Trebunie Tutki has experimented in recent years by incorporating reggae, rock and jazz sounds. On our first visit we saw one band that had created its own style of modern fusion folk music, incorporating jazz and classical sounds. Another even threw in some Beatles covers!

When we’re in Zakopane, we like to hop between restaurants, visiting several in a night, having a meal at one, and a post-dinner nightcap at one or two others. And we can happily do this every single night, never tiring of the experience.

If you’re a music lover, we strongly recommend you do the same. A night out seeing live folk music in Zakopane could become one of your most memorable nights out in Poland. And it will cost you little more than your meal, drinks, and tips.

And if you become as hooked on the music as we did? Pick up a few CDs from the folk market in the centre of town. Baciarujciez Chlopcy and Zagrojcie Dudzicki by Trebunie Tutki were recommended to us and are wonderful.

Or perhaps return for Zakopane’s International Highland Folklore Festival, which the town hosts each year, when as many as one and a half million people can hit town to celebrate Zakopane’s highlander music, customs and culture, as well as folk music from other parts of the world.

It’s not just folk music you’ll find in the mountain town, however, Zakopane is rich in music traditions, hosting annual chamber music and jazz festivals. See www.zakopane-life.com for details on folk music in Zakopane.