Etnofon. How to make folk music recordings available? A conversation between Jacek Jackowski and Piotr Grochowski

Abstract

Jacek Jackowski is a musician and ethnomusicologist, and the head of the Phonographic Collection at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He specializes in the conservation, digitization and archiving of old sound recordings. He is a field researcher and author of many academic articles on traditional, Catholic and folk religious culture associated with musical behaviours. He also published numerous articles and books on early folk music recordings and their digitization (Zachować dawne nagrania, Warszawa 2014; Polska muzyka tradycyjna – dziedzictwo fonograficzne, t. 1, Warszawa 2017; t. 2, Warszawa 2019), as well as 17 CD albums of folk songs and music from Kashubia, Kurpie, Podhale, Łowicz, Orava, South Wielkopolska and many other regions of Poland. Since 2014 he has been managing the Etnofon project, the goal of which is to create, develop and maintain a central digital repository of documentary phonographic and film recordings capturing Polish traditional songs and music as well as folk dance.