Janusz Bielecki, owner of JB Property Group, by day a developer\u2026 and by night a composer. His passion is more than just a time-out from work, as it also gives him what he finds to be missing there.<\/p>\n
Dorota Kaczy\u0144ska<\/p>\n
Weekend<\/em>, June 2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Toronto, Canada. A post-concert banquet. A Polish composer is approached by a Canadian flautist.<\/p>\n \u201cHow old were you when you started playing? Four? Five?\u201d the musician asks.<\/p>\n \u201cI was 45,\u201d the composer replies.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s your marketing, isn\u2019t it?\u201d responds the flautist, with a broad smile and a wink.<\/p>\n The composer is Janusz Bielecki, Krak\u00f3w businessman, owner of JB Property Group, a capital group whose businesses include Super Krak, Hotel Swing, and the city\u2019s Park Wodny aquapark. A graduate of the Krak\u00f3w Academy of Physical Education, he is a PE teacher, swimming coach, and skiing instructor by education. He only sat at the piano in 2006, by then a middle-aged man.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my primary school, I learnt to play the violin,\u201d Bielecki says. \u201cLater, I only listened to music. Until the day when I felt I had too much emotion in me and I had to release it. So I sat at the piano, and simply started playing. That was how my first compositions came about. I called them Rozterka<\/em> \/ Quandary<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Soon afterwards, in 2007, he released the first CD with the music he had composed. He not only wrote the music for Quandary<\/em>, but also performed it and made his publishing debut. More discs followed \u2013 to date he has released 12 albums. Bielecki\u2019s music has spread around the world, resounding in concert halls from the US to Australia. The Krak\u00f3w businessman also opened the All Muses artistic agency, organising concerts and other artistic events, and the Bielecki Art Foundation, helping young artists. In 2013, he launched the Screen & Sound Fest. \u2013 Let\u2019s See the Music festival, which creates visualisations of the works of eminent Polish composers. He was also a patron of the Marek Grechuta Festival.<\/p>\n Bielecki started composing for pleasure and to release his emotions. For a time, his works never saw the light of day, until he decided to share his music with some friends. They encouraged him to go on composing. It was then that his business knack kicked in, and Bielecki decided to confront his works with professionals: he announced a competition for interpretation of his music by professional pianists. The prize was to record a CD. The winner was the consummate pianist and arranger Ireneusz Boczek, with whom Bielecki continues to work to this day. Together they recorded the \u017b\u0105dze<\/em> \/ Desires<\/em> album (2008). The businessman also began to work with the Beethoven Academy Orchestra and conductor Micha\u0142 Nesterowicz. The following steps followed in no time at all. The premiere concert for the chamber version of Desires<\/em>, held at Radio Krak\u00f3w, came first. Bielecki invited many acquaintances from the business world. \u201cThey expected a business meeting, so they were in for quite a shock to see me as a composer\u201d Bielecki laughs.<\/p>\n In the following months, Desires<\/em> was arranged and instrumented for a large symphonic orchestra, with the first concerts held at the Krak\u00f3w Philharmonic Hall in the autumn of 2008 and a tour of the six largest cities of Poland starting in the spring of 2009.<\/p>\n Bielecki is loath to define his music.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone finds something different in it. It\u2019s essential that it appeals to feelings and stimulates emotions. My music is simply honest,\u201d the composer insists.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Resetting business<\/strong><\/p>\n In the meantime, the music community decided that his style oscillates between 19th-and 20th-century music and is influenced by Rachmaninoff and Mahler. Janusz Bielecki maintains that he follows no influences. When he composes, he\u2019s simply unwinding after work.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is an authentic passion, and I try hard to keep it so. Composing on the piano, I forget about business problems. That resets the brain and takes you to another world. It gives peace and energy of the same time,\u201d the entrepreneur explains. How can you play such a complicated instrument without prior preparation at school? \u201cMany people don\u2019t understand that. I also used to ask myself this question but I stopped doing so. I just go on composing. Moreover, professional musicians find it impossible. However, many of them have changed their opinion in the course of one of my concerts,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n He recalls that, when, at the start of his music adventure, he played with professional pianists, none dared to teach him. \u201cIt was only years later that we discovered that they\u2019d been afraid of me and I\u2019d been afraid of them,\u201d Bielecki clarifies.<\/p>\n As becomes a businessman, all the rights to his works remain with him and All Muses. \u201cOnly selected people can interpret my works,\u201d the composer notes.<\/p>\n His albums frequently combine his music with the works of other composers, living and dead. Every CD has been released in at least 2,000 copies. Then come rereleases.<\/p>\n Bielecki\u2019s works have been played in numerous concert halls. The largest audience? \u201cIn Shanghai. The open-air concert was streamed to over 100 million people,\u201d the composer recalls. \u201cThat was when I was on a concert tour with the Polish Baltic Philharmonic. It started to rain in Shanghai. Initially, rehearsing in a large concert hall, we didn\u2019t heed the rain. However, as the Chinese manager of the concert told us that we were only rehearsing indoors, and we would play outdoors during the \u2018dry\u2019 hours meteorologists forecasted, we initially refused. After long negotiations we agreed to play until the first drop of rain. The concert was held, and not a raindrop fell. We were lucky,\u201d the composer recalls.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Turning to film <\/strong><\/p>\n Janusz Bielecki claims that he is only nervous during the first several minutes during his recitals and later forgets about everything.<\/p>\n \u201cNew pieces often originate on the stage. Everything depends on the contact with the audience and the soul of the piano. These instruments have souls, and they have a tendency to sulk,\u201d says Bielecki.<\/p>\n As he says he is more stressed before concerts the orchestra play, he is sometimes asked why he gets nervous at a time when nothing more depends on him. \u201cThis is precisely the reason,\u201d Bielecki replies, noting that he feels awkward when he has no control over his \u201cbaby\u201d.<\/p>\n The businessman has experienced plenty of emotional moments, for example when a professional composer in China told him that his pieces reminded him of Chopin\u2019s works.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was absolutely touching. The Chinese are in love with Chopin, even if their sensitivity is absolutely unlike ours and they often interpret his pieces their own way. Yet their love of Chopin, counted in millions, is charming,\u201d he says fondly.<\/p>\n Bielecki\u2019s dream is to have more peace and time. To play for himself and for his nearest and dearest in the quiet of his home. Yet spare moments are still a rare commodity, especially as he has been active in film productions in recent years.<\/p>\n \u201cOne day I met Tomasz Wasilewski, the director and scriptwriter of P\u0142yn\u0105ce wie\u017cowce<\/em> \/ Floating Skyscrapers<\/em>. He was looking for support for this project. He knew I had an artistic soul, as he had been to my concerts. He was hoping to get me on the bandwagon for his concept. And he succeeded.\u201d<\/p>\n Super Krak became one of Floating Skyscrapers\u2019<\/em> coproducers. The film premiered in 2013 and won plentiful accolades, including the main prizes of the East of West Competition in Karlovy Vary and the Polish Film Festival Bap Cine in Buenos Aires, and the audience awards at the New Horizons Film Festival and Sopot Film Festival. Soon, Bielecki began investing in films himself and via his enterprises and the All Muses artistic agency. These were Pani z przedszkola<\/em> \/ All About My Parents<\/em> and Hycel<\/em> \/ The Dog Catcher<\/em> \u2013 winner of the Ewa Kamirska Prize for the Best Short Film at Gdynia Film Festival\u2019s Short Features Competition.<\/p>\n \u201cArtistically, all these films stand up to scrutiny,\u201d emphasises Bielecki, who celebrates 10 years of his Bielecki Art Foundation this year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With that knack for business<\/strong><\/p>\n Bielecki believes that pairing business with art is both a major challenge and profound satisfaction.<\/p>\n \u201cI have come to know both these worlds from the inside. Importantly, I learnt them in the right order, that is I began with business. I\u2019ve met many artists with money who invested it in their projects, only to end in fiascos,\u201d remarks Bielecki, whose business path has been long indeed.<\/p>\n In the 1980s, immediately after graduation, he left for a stint working in the West. He returned to Poland after the systemic transformation and took to trade.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the time, hardly any entrepreneurs approached business with foresight,\u201d Bielecki points out. \u201cAs a result, they ceased to exist as soon as they emerged. I managed to survive because I followed my forward-thinking mindset. I quickly sensed the advent of the era of the real estate market. I started operating in that sector in 1994, buying the first 10 hectares in Krak\u00f3w\u2019s Olsza neighbourhood. It was post-industrial land, still dotted with old factories: some still operational, some bankrupt. At the time, nobody believed that any new start could be made there. Everyone reacted with disbelief.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet many foreign businesses were keen to collaborate. Meeting their representatives, the Krak\u00f3w businessman drew the shapes of potential buildings with a stick on Olsza\u2019s dusty ground. And he was right. It was here that Krak\u00f3w\u2019s first Aral filling station was opened, followed by a Geant hypermarket. Janusz Bielecki began investing in hotels, retail centres, the hospitality sector, office buildings, residential settlements, and houses. A complex of residential and office buildings together with retail centres \u2013 a city within a city \u2013 rose in Olsza, just as he had imagined it. It even contained an aquapark. The developer is also renovating heritage sites in Italy.<\/p>\n \u201cHolding tight to a single location or a single source of revenue is economically unfeasible,\u201d he remarks.<\/p>\n Now his greatest challenge is to consolidate the capital group. \u201cI have multiple companies that prosper but I want to implement a new organisational culture so that all the companies cooperate. And then I\u2019ll go and retire,\u201d Bielecki announces. He is joking, as he is quick to point out, as he is known to be a workaholic. Nevertheless, he hopes that after retirement he will find different forms of fulfilment than he has now. Perhaps only as a musician?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Photographs by Pawe\u0142 Ulatowski, Joanna B\u0105k<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Janusz Bielecki, owner of JB Property Group, by day a developer\u2026 and by night a composer. His passion is more than just a time-out from work, as it also gives him what he finds to be missing there. Dorota Kaczy\u0144ska Weekend, June 2019 Toronto, Canada. A post-concert banquet. 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