Wałach, Rafał

Born in Istebna [S of Wisła], lived in Jaworzynka-Krzyżowa [SW of Istebna]; He was a grandson of the well-known painter Jan; He had a younger sister, Jadwiga; The name of their mother was Danuta; Their father Józef (?-?), an architect by profession, played the violin, and performed together with his brother [Rafał’s uncle] Stanisław; He also taught Rafał to play the violin; Rafał played, together with his wife, violinist Monika Wałach, née Bocek, in the first formation of the now legendary band "Wałasi" (founded by his cousin Zbigniew Wałach (*1961)); There he played the double-bass that he had bought from Józef Kawulok "Zmudek" (*1961), according to Katarzyna & Maciej Szomonwiczowie, "with the money he got for the motorcycle he had sold to him [i.e. to "Zmudek"]"; Having started to play the Gajdy (his first teacher was gajdosz Jan Sikora of Koniaków-Mała Łączka), he founded, together with Monika, the band "Jetelinka" ("Branch of a fir tree" in mountaineers’ dialect); In 1988, Zbigniew Wałach made a Gajdy for Rafał’s father Józef, but in practice it was Rafał who primarily played on the instrument; He played the Gajdy in the "Koniaków" and "Istebna" bands; His cousin Zbigniew, Józef Kawulok, and he were the first gajdosze [pipers] of the young generation, who started the revival of the archaic music of the Silesian mountaineers; Rafał also taught their son Martin (*1989) to play the Gajdy and double bass; Their other son, Benek, plays the violin; In order to educate young gajdosze and violinists, Rafał and Monika created the band "Little Jetelinka", for which they specially ordered a Gajdy dziecięce [Children’s bagpipe] from Józef Haratyk of Koniaków (Gańczorka); In a short episode of the film "Śladami Oskara Kolberga" [In the footsteps of Oskar Kolberg] [19??], Rafał played the Gajdy, in duet with Jan Sikora on the violin. Apart from Gajdy, double-bass, violin, and viola, Rafał also played the organ (which was his great passion); He was also the author of several reviews and articles, and, in search of old melodies and song lyrics, he wandered through the "Trójwieś [Triple village] Beskidzka" [i.e. Istebna, Koniaków, and Jaworzynka [triangle S-SSE of Wisła]; ws], collecting about 1000 of those; Throughout his life he also collected material, with the intention of publishing a comprehensive dictionary of Silesian mountaineers’ dialects, but he died, prematurely, of cancer; NB¹: ➺ Zuzanna Kawulok; NB²: ➺ Family tree.