Location: Opera Leśna, Sopot
Date: 12/09/2026There’s something quietly radical happening in Sopot. Not loud, not desperate, not chasing trends. Just a festival that understands one simple truth: film music doesn’t belong in the background. It is the main story.
Brasswood Soundtracks 2026 is the seventh edition of what began as a world music and acoustic gathering, and by now it’s one of the most focused and fully-formed festival propositions in Poland. We’re already circling the date. Because this one, every year, delivers. No gimmicks. No filler. Just atmosphere, precision, and that rare sense of place you can’t fake.
At the heart of it all sits Opera Leśna, a venue that transforms concert. A natural amphitheatre buried in the forest, where sound travels differently, where silence matters, where every note feels like it’s hanging in the trees.
This year, we’re getting the cold synth pulse of “Stranger Things“, performed live by its creators Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. That score is anxiety dressed as melody, and hearing it live, in that setting, might hit harder than the series ever did.
Then there’s Marc Shaiman‘s score for “The Addams Family“, reimagined at orchestral scale by Rebel Babel Film Orchestra and Polska Filharmonia Kameralna Sopot. Gothic humour, theatrical excess, and that unmistakable waltz momentum, now with real weight behind it.
And let’s not pretend we’re not curious about Percival‘s anniversary concert. Co-composers of the “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” soundtrack alongside Marcin Przybyłowicz and Mikołaj Stroiński, and contributors to Season 3 of the Netflix series, these are musicians who understand how to turn Slavic folklore into something physical and unsettling.
The Polish side of the programme holds its ground too. Jerzy Rogiewicz‘s score for “1670“, sharp, absurd, painfully local in the best way, performed by the combined forces of Rebel Babel Film Orchestra and Polska Filharmonia Kameralna Sopot. Jerzy Duduś Matuszkiewicz‘s music for “Janosik“, a classic of Polish film composition getting a new scenic interpretation. And “Chłopi” (“The Peasants”), the Oscar-nominated score by L.U.C. himself, conducted live in what amounts to the festival director programming his own best work, and getting away with it completely.
But what really sets Brasswood apart isn’t just the line-up. It’s the intent.
This is a festival built around the idea that music can carry narrative on its own. No screen. No safety net. Just composition, space, and emotion. The kind of setting where a score doesn’t accompany a story, it becomes one.
L.U.C. has pushed the festival into this new identity with purpose. Moving away from its earlier world music roots into something more focused, more cinematic, more daring. And crucially, more honest. Alongside the big orchestral moments, there’s room for stripped-down, acoustic performances too. No amplification. No tricks. Just sound meeting air.
Beyond the concerts, the festival opens up into a proper creative ecosystem. Meetings with composers, directors, producers. Panels. Workshops. Real conversations instead of industry small talk. It’s less about posing, more about building something.
And that’s why we keep coming back.
Because Brasswood isn’t trying to impress you with scale alone. It earns its weight through detail, through curation, through that intangible feeling that you’re exactly where you should be.
12 September. End of summer. The forest, the stage, the sound.
We’ll be there.
