The 2025 edition brings an exciting collaboration with Cryptic Glasgow and Scotland’s Sonica Festival, made possible through UK/Poland Season 2025. As part of this special international exchange, audiences in Lublin will experience outdoor sound installations, an audiovisual concert exploring space travel and 18th-century poetry, and a joint Polish-Scottish musical project rooted in traditional vocal practices.

About

UK/Poland Season 2025
This season marks a new chapter in cultural relations between Poland and the UK—an opportunity to renew dialogue, deepen partnerships, and strengthen artistic and social bonds. It presents audiences on both sides of the Channel with a unique chance to discover some of the most exciting creative voices in film, theatre, visual arts, design, and music.
In Poland, the Season is organised and funded by the British Council, while the UK programme is coordinated by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute, and the British Council, with support from Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At the heart of the Season lies the theme of migration, honouring both the long-standing Polish community in the UK and Poland’s present-day role as a safe haven for people from Ukraine and Belarus. Artists from these countries who now live and create in Poland have become an integral part of the local cultural scene—embodying the openness and diversity that both the Season and the Different Sounds Festival strive to celebrate.

Uk/ Poland Season 2025 – Featured Projects in Lublin:

Ela Orleans – Polish composer and audiovisual artist living in Glasgow and Paris. Her interests and professional activities cover such a wide spectrum as audiovisual projects, contemporary multimedia, composing for the world of film, television or opera, participating in contemporary art exhibitions, academic work, up to playing regular concerts. She has performed at such prestigious venues as New York’s MoMA, Britain’s TATE Modern, the Venice Biennale and Glasgow’s Sonica Festival. In Lublin, the artist will present to an innuendo audience one of her leading projects – the famous Night Voyager, musically based on the sound of synthesizer, theremin, violin and vocals, accompanied by archival NASA recordings from the 1969 Apollo lunar mission. The artist combined the emotions of the astronauts with excerpts from “Night Thoughts,” a collection of extended poetic musings written by Edward Young in 1742. Here, Orleans focuses on the broader meaning of lunar travel and Young’s exploration of mortality, time and human folly. Though now forgotten, Night Thoughts was called in its time “the greatest and richest poetry ever produced by human genius.”

Dopey Monkey and guests – Scottish band formed by Martin Lee Thomson (euphonium) and Danielle Price (tuba). Musically, it oscillates between funky, jazz and experimental music and folk and classical. The duo is also eager to go beyond the traditional boundaries associated with their instruments. Since its formation in 2015, it has been tirelessly exploring not only its own possibilities, but also creating projects based on different media and performance forms. The Scottish group’s performances, as it were, are non-standard by design and emphasize the inquisitive dynamics of artistic exploration. For the purposes of the festival East of Culture –

For the East of Culture – Different Sounds festival and the UK/Poland 2025 artistic season, Dopey Monkey has teamed up with Lublin-based artists from the collective Zielona Girlanda and multi-instrumentalist Tomasz Graczyk to create something truly unique.  

Born out of collaborative workshops in 2024, their new project fuses genres in a captivating performance inspired by folk traditions, nature, and the art of storytelling. Alongside the rich tones of tuba and euphonium, audiences will hear soprano and tenor saxophones, layered vocals, and soundscapes that feel both earthy and otherworldly. During the festival, this Polish-Scottish crew will pop up across Lublin in unexpected places. But don’t expect your typical street performance – instead, they’ll travel with a mobile “concert space”, inspired by places of pause and reflection like bothies (basic, freely accessible shelters found in remote parts of Scotland, northern England, Ulster, and Wales) and chapels.
Spectators are invited to step inside, slow down, and immerse themselves in rich sonic landscapes in an intimate, soul-soothing setting.

Sing the Gloaming – a visual and sound installation by Professor Simon Kirby and artists/musicians Tommy Perman and Rob St. John. The starting point for this amazing project is the word “ghlei,” an ancient word, used as early as 5,000 years ago, meaning light. A number of related names are derived from this word, including the title gloaming (twilight). “Sing the Gloaming” is a series of sound sculptures placed in an open green space. The sounds and vocalizations (sung by leading Scottish singer-songwriters Aidan Moffat, Emily Scott, SHHE, Hanna Tuuliki and Andrew Wasylyk) used in this work play brilliantly with the surrounding nature of the installation, guaranteeing the audience an original, artistic experience. This is a project dedicated to light, language and landscape that encourages audiences to explore the world of sound at their own pace.

As part of the festival, visitors will not only experience the installation but also have the chance to attend a special presentation by Rob St. John, offering insights into the creative process behind this unique and immersive project.

Who else is set to take the stage at Different Sounds?

Last month, the organisers of Different Sounds unveiled the first wave of artists set to perform at this year’s edition of the festival. Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

• Voivod – The legendary Canadian metal band that’s been going strong since 1982. With deep roots in thrash metal history, they made a game-changing pivot towards progressive metal, earning their place as one of the genre’s most influential acts.
• The EX – Hailing from the Netherlands, this iconic group has long been a beacon of European counterculture. One of the most important punk collectives in the history of alternative music
• A Place to Bury Strangers – A powerhouse trio from the U.S. known for their intense blend of noise rock, shoegaze, post-punk, and free improvisation. Expect a wall of sound and raw energy.
• The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis –an instrumental trio formed by members of the legendary Fugazi, now teaming up with the phenomenal saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis for a bold, genre-bending collaboration
• PETBRICK – A high-octane duo featuring Wayne Adams (head of London’s Bear Bites Horse Recording Studio) and Iggor Cavalera, the iconic drummer best known from Sepultura and Cavalera Conspiracy. Prepare for a sonic explosion.
• Maria W. Horn –A Swedish composer and sound artist whose haunting, exploratory work places sound at the heart of her creative journey.
• Butch Kassidy – A post-rock outfit from London, rapidly rising as one of Europe’s most exciting names in heavy guitar-driven music. 

This year marks the 18th edition of Lublin’s Inne Brzmienia festival, organised by Workshops of Culture, and the 12th edition held as part of Wschód Kultury—a unique cultural project led by the National Centre for Culture, funded by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and brought to life across three cities in eastern Poland: Lublin, Białystok, and Rzeszów.  

Admission to the festival remains free, with more announcements coming soon!

More information: https://nck.pl/projekty-kulturalne/projekty/wschod-kultury

East of Culture – Different Sounds      
3–6 July 2025   
Lublin, Błonia near the Castle
Admission free.

Organisers: The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, The National Centre for Culture, the City of Lublin, Workshops of Culture in Lublin.     

East of Culture – Different Sounds Festival is actively championing gender equality in the music industry as part of the Keychange network.