Jacek Zieliñski met his wife during his first year of studies. They were together for over 50 years

Jacek Zieliński lived in Krakow from birth, but he and his family divided their lives between this city and the Tatra Mountains. He built a log house in the mountains, where they were to spend holidays and holidays from then on, next to the former house of his parents and his brother, Andrzej, who was two years older than him, with whom he co-founded the band Skaldowie. They both followed in their father’s footsteps when they devoted their lives to music. Franciszek Zieliński was a musician associated with the Krakow Philharmonic and the Polish Radio Choir in Krakow. However, they chose pop.

– We were guided by the desire to find a break from classical music and focus on something more popular. Then the fashion for electric guitars appeared, caused by the British band The Shadows. Then The Beatles began to achieve great success. We listened to them at various parties. So there was a desire to also play such music – Jacek Zieliński in 2020 for “Gazeta Krakowska”.

Jacek Zieliński met Halina at a friend’s birthday

First, my older son started learning the piano, and Jacek chose the violin. As they recalled, their dad used to take them both to music school on one bike. Jacek Zieliński graduated from a music high school in the violin class, then studied viola at the Higher School of Music in Krakow. It was at that time that he met his future wife, Halina from Siedlce, who was studying architecture. The vocalist of Skaldów, founded in 1965, was a first-year student at the time, and they met at a mutual friend’s birthday party.

– We felt sympathy for each other and started spending a lot of time together. My wife failed in her exams and had to change her university. She graduated from the Pedagogical University, but did not work as a teacher. She was simply a wonderful wife, mother, she took care of the house, for which I am grateful to her – said the musician in an interview for “People and Faith”.

They got married in 1971, and five years later they lived in Krakow, in a block of flats in the Olsza housing estate. The husband and wife were always close to each other, even when they were many kilometers apart – Skaldowie, as a popular band, gave concerts not only in Poland. In an interview with “Niedziela”, Halina Zielińska admitted that it was not easy for her with two children, when Jacek was sometimes away from home for up to a year. Their son Bogumił, in the same interview, called his father a beacon of gentleness and said that his mother was more strict and that there was a belt hanging on the hinge of the kitchen door. Unlike many professionals and parents today, however, he did not condemn its use at the time. – I think I got hit with that belt every day – adding that he “wasn’t polite”.

Three generations of Zielińskis on stage with Skaldy

Halina never really liked being in the spotlight, but both Bogumił and his sister not only inherited their father’s musical talents, but also showed them on stage with him. From the late 1980s, Gabriela Zielińska-Tarcholik sometimes appeared in duets with Jacek Zieliński, and her brother, as an accompanying musician, played guitar with Skaldami. Gabriela’s husband, drummer Rafał Tarcholik, also played in Skaldy.

In 2015, three generations of Zielińskis performed together with Skaldy, celebrating its 50th anniversary: ​​Agnieszka and Bartłomiej, Andrzej’s children, and Gabriela and Bogumił, Jacek’s children, as well as his grandson – Wojtek, then 15 years old and a student of the Secondary State Music School . W. Żeleński in Krakow. Halina and Jacek had a total of five grandchildren.

Nine years ago, they said with smiles on their faces that the band would also celebrate its 60th anniversary. – When I look at them, I think it’s real. They don’t look their age. Maybe it was the vodka that preserved them in those years… – Bogumił said then. Unfortunately, we missed a year. “, a great Polish artist – co-creator of the Skalds – but also our great friend and composer,” said the host of the Piwnica pod Baranami fanpage on Monday, May 6. It was there that, in the early 1980s, he produced the play “Song of Songs, or The Ballad of a Man About Love” with texts by Wiesław Dymny.