In 2008, an original project of combining the opera voice with 2 marimbas was created and thus a very fruitful cooperation was established between marimbafonists Elwira Ślązak and Gabriel Collet, forming axoum Duo and baritone, Marcin Bronikowski. After the first concert, which turned out to be a great success, as part of the Franz Schubert Music Festival at the Royal Castle in Warsaw in December 2008, Marcin Bronikowski and Axoum Duo decided to continue their cooperation, expanding the repertoire with other works m.in from Polish, French, Spanish music, as well as their own compositions.
The arranger and composer is Gabriel Collet.
The aim of this cooperation is to create a new artistic aesthetic between the most natural, masculine voice – the baritone, and marimba, which with its original, deep sound resembles the depth of the baritone sound.
For the needs of the Trio, Gabriel Collet created arrangements of well-known Latin American hits as well as classic songs by Schubert and Chopin.
In 2018, Gabriel Collet wrote a cycle of 12 songs to the words of Adam Mickiewicz’s sonnets (the famous romantic polish poet) for baritone and 2 marimbas and dedicated them especially to Marcin Bronikowski. The world premiere of this song cycle, entitled Mickiewicz for 3 voices, took place on November 17, 2018. The premiere gained a lot of interest, great reviews and was broadcast on the waves of Polish Radio RDC.