Biography

The music band Stonehenge was created in 1996 taking its name after the famous Neolithic circle of standing stones, Salisbury Plain, England. At first the members of the band were: Janusz Jurczak - accordion, Jozef DZIDEK Kilijanski - mandolin, Kamil Krzanowski - violin and Arkadiusz COSMOS Wasik - acoustic guitar.

From the very beginning the band's repertoir included traditional Celtic dances: jigs, reels and hornpipes. The concerts were given mostly at pubs and during local open air festivals but due to the band's good workshop and creativity it soon became one of the best known folk groups in Poland.

In 1997 the band was joined by the bassist Martin UDO Wiśniewski and in 1999 the first CD was released entitled Magic of Celtic Music. This period was also marked with the clarification of the band's distinctive style enriched with Slavic determination.

In 1999 Martin Wiśniewski and DZIDEK left the band and their place was taken by Miroslaw Niedziolko (bass guitar) and Martin Szermanski (banjo and classic guitar). In 2000 a new album, entitled Echo Wyspy was released. It was recorded in cooperation with the famous Cuban drummer, Jose Torres. During that particular period the band also cooperated with the dance groups Comhlan and Kilsheelan. Their common performance being a mixture of Celtic music and dancing was well received by the audience and turned out to be a great success.

In 2000 while giving concerts with many Polish popstars, the members of the band decided to enrich the sound of their music with a new tone. They took in a drummer, Rafal MISIEK Nowak. In 2001 guitarist Simon Borkowski (guitar, banjo and bouzuki) replaced Martin Szermanski. The apperarance of the new musicians and new instruments made the music even more energetic and the reactions of the audiences very spontaneous.

During the following years the band were touring all over Poland giving even one hundred concerts per year. In 2005 the band's third album called Celtic Express was released. The Celtic traditional sound has been enriched with the folk music from all over the world. Furthermore, for the first time in the band's history the vocal appeared. The texts were written by the well known Polish writer, Monika Szwaja.

Inviting Paul Lemanski (keyboards) to cooperation has turned out to be a turning point in the band's history. Thanks to him the music itself has gained some freshness and become more spatial. He also used loops for the first time which made the music sound more modern.

The last two years were marked with the changes in the band's rhytmic section: in 2008 Martin KWACHU Kisiel (drums) has replaced Rafal Nowak and in 2009 Thomas Andrzejewski (bass guitar) has replaced Mirek Niedziolko. In January 2010 Peter Fujcik (bass guitar) has replaced Tomasz Andrzejewski.

At present the band is touring very actively and working on their new album coming this year.