The Croatian Radio Television Big Band, that is, its predecessor, the Dancing orchestra of Radio Zagreb, was founded in the season of 1946/47 to fulfill the demands of the Radio and assembled the best musicians from a number of ensembles, under the baton of Zlatko Černjul. Of the numerous conductors that followed, a special mention must be made of Miljenko Prohaska, who was in charge of the orchestra for more then 30 years and introduced the policy of creating a repertoire of their own. This change of orientation brought on the development of a specific style. Many internationally prominent soloists performed with the ensemble: Art Farmer, Clark Terry, Johnny Griffin, Ernie Wilkins, Kai Winding, John Lewis, Art Taylor and others. For the last decade the orchestra has been under the successful direction of Silvije Glojnarić. He introduced the policy of gradually including the best musicians of the younger generation (Saša Nestorović, Davor Križić and others) in order to maintain the highest level of artistic achievement. For the last five years the Big Band has had a regular concert series.

Almost eight years after their debut on Music Biennale Zagreb in 2001, Cantus Ensemble has become a brand ensemble specialized for performing all kinds of «new» music. Also, from their beginnings, the ensemble is active with permanent members who, being soloists, make it a specific individualized ensemble, under artistic leadership and baton of Berislav Šipuš. Its members are all exceptional chamber musicians and soloists, also concert masters, leaders of the instrumental sections of symphony orchestras and teachers at the Zagreb Academy of Music. Cantus Ensemble is not only a participant in the Croatian music scene, which they «serve» on almost all of national festivals and manifestations, even with their own concert cycle (Cantus&Lisinski, since 2006/7), but they are also striving to be the medium of fine perception of needs, the initial impulse of changes, but also those who can cope with it. Therefore, the numbers of approximately seventy performances, around thirty guest performances, numerous guest soloists and conductors and the usual practice of numerous composers' dedications, witness the position of this ensemble in the national and international context. The ensemble's special features are also the intense collaboration with the European ensembles of the same type, the Vienna Fondation and Arnold Schönberg Center, Canadian ensemble Les Amis etc., as well as their own workshop for young conductors and composers that was organized for the first time in collaboration with the Dutch Gaudeamus Fondation, Gaudeamus Music Week Festival and Croatian Music Youth. 

Their grand «journey around the world» took them to Beijing and Toronto, where they successfully ten works by Croatian composers of the 20th and 21st century. The ensemble was also appointed official ISCM's ensemble for the year 2008 and were presented at the ISCM's World Music Days in october this year, hosted by the Gaida Festival in Vilnius.

The D&B Duo was founded in 2006 by pianists Dubravka Vukalović and Bruno Vlahek as part of their chamber music course at the Lausanne Conservatoire under the supervision of Prof. Dag Achatz. At the very beginning of their career, the audiences showed a considerable interest in their playing, thus resulting in a number of important performances in Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain and Croatia. Their repertoire mainly consists of works by the 20^th and 21^st century composers, as well as of the original pieces for two pianos and arranged compositions written for other instrumental ensembles.

Dubravka Vukalović (Varaždin, 1984) received her first musical education at the Varaždin School of Music from Olimpija Vojvoda before leaving for Moscow, where she graduated from the Central Special School of Music at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in the class of Alexander Mndoyantz. She further studied at the Lausanne Conservatoire with Dag Achatz, Jean-François Antonioli and Ricard Castro who supervised the completion of her postgraduate studies on a scholarship granted by the Max D. Jost Foundation. In the season of 2010/11 she went on to work with Evgeny Mogilevsky at the Brussels Royal Conservatoire. She has attended seminars conducted by renowned teachers such as Rudolf Kehrer, Anatoly Katz and Jean-Bernard Pommier.

She made her debut at the age of 14 performing alongside Pavle Dešpalj and the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2000, she won the first prize at the Zlatko Grgošević Piano Competition in Zagreb, having given a number of solo performances and chamber music concerts around Europe since then. In 2009, she participated in the Archipel International Festival of Contemporary Music playing in a duo with the renowned French violist, Christophe Desjardins, and has performed with the Namascae Ensemble for Contemporary Music of French and Swiss origin alongside maestro Eduardo Leandro.  In the same year, she appeared in Brasil as a soloist in Ravel's Piano Concerto with the Bahia Symphony Orchestra. The recordings of her performances have been made for TV stations in Croatia and Spain as well as for the Radio Suisse Romande.

Bruno Vlahek (Zagreb, 1986) graduated in piano from the Zagreb Academy of Music in the class of Vladimir Krpan, before completing postgraduate studies at the Lausanne Conservatoire under Jean-François Antonioli as well as at the Cologne College of Music under the guidance of Vassily Lobanov (piano) and Tilmann Claus and Johannes Fritsch (composition and improvisation). In the academic year of 2010/11,  he further studies with Dmitry Bashkirov at the Queen Sophia College of Music in Madrid. He is the winner of the 2010 Alexander Scriabin and 2008 Ricard Viñes International Piano Competitions in Paris and Lleida respectively. He was a finalist at the 2009 Busoni Competition in Bolzano.

As a soloist he has played around Europe in venues such as Palau de la Música in Barcelona, Gasteig in Munich, Ferenc Liszt in Budapest, Ópera de Lausanne, Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Slovene Philharmonic Society in Ljubljana; performed at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, the Music Biennale Zagreb and at the Busoni Festival in Italy, and played a concert series for the Vladimir Spivakov Foundation in Moscow. In 2008, he recorded Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra for the Radio Suisse Romande.

His compositional oeuvre includes about thirty works of various genres that have been performed in European concert venues, at the contemporary music festival in Pula and Belgrade, as well as in the USA, Venezuela and in Australia at the 2010 World Music Days held in Sydney. The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia awarded him twice with grants for Croatian contemporary music.

The New Music Group of the Elly Bašić Music School, Zagreb, has been playing as an ensemble since November 2007. The group consists of high school students included in the "Young People and Contemporary Music" project, based on the idea, and under the leadership, of teachers Maja Petyo Bošnjak and Berislav Šipuš. The project's long-term goal is to systematically familiarize students with 20^th century's new music in order for them to be able to follow the new tendencies of the 21^st century. As active participants, the students of elementary and secondary schools are introduced to, and perform, New music, by participating in contemporary music workshops. An added value for the Group for New Music is an experience of working with the distinguished professor Berislav Šipuš. In the preparations for the performances at the Biennale, the students are cooperating with the young conductor Josip Nalis.

Wishing to introduce current international performing trends to the local audience Krunoslav Babić established the XL Tuba Quartet in 2002, as the first of such kind in the region. Since tuba is primarily an orchestral instrument, it was their wish to demonstrate that it can also be adapted to chamber music playing and even solo parts. The ensemble's repertoire varies from classic masters to jazz and contemporary composers. Along with original works for a tuba quartet, they often reach for arrangements of baroque and classical „hits“. The arrangers are usually the leading brass players of the second half of the 20th century, soloists from European and American orchestras and professors. The musicians of the Quartet have all, upon graduating from music academies, perfected theirplaying with the prominent professors. The audience has recognized their high quality and the uniqueness of this ensemble, which has already played a big number of concerts at home and abroad. The XL Quartet has recorded two albums for Aquarius Records, so far, 100% Tuba and 101% Tuba.

LP Duo is one of the most successful chamber ensembles in this part of Europe. The ensemble was founded in 2004 when pianists Sonja Lončar and Andrija Pavlović played the integral version of Olivier Messiaen's "Visions de l'Amen" within the Belgrade Summer Festival. Sonja Lončar and Andrija Pavlović completed their undergraduate  and postgraduate studies (specialized in piano duo) at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, and continued their education at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Rostock (Germany), completing postgraduate and PhD studies in chamber music and piano duo with honour, under Hans-Peter and Volker Stenzel. They are one of only six duos in the world with this, the highest sort of diploma for a piano duo.

They received the City of Belgrade Award, the Award of Serbian Music Artists Association, and the Bruno Frey Stiftung Prize. LP Duo reached the finale at the biggest duo competition in Miami, in 2008., as one of the world's eight best piano duos. They also won numerous prizes at the 11^th International Competition for Contemporary Chamber Music in Krakow, the "Chopin Roma" and the Bialistok competitions. LP Duo has performed in numerous Serbian cities, in many European countries and the US. They performed on a boat sailing on the Sava and Danube rivers, for the BELEF Festival in 2007. The Duo appeared with the Belgrade Strings performing The Fete by Ivo Josipović, which was released on a CD with music by Josipović and Ivana Stefanović, published by Cantus and HDS, in cooperation with Jugokoncert. They have also collaborated with the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra and Symphony Orchestra of Serbian Radio Television recorded for Belgrade and Novi Sad Radio & TV, as well as for radio and TV companies in San Marino, Poland, Slovenia, and the US.

The LP Duo repertoire is broad and includes classical, contemporary, experimental and popular compositions for two pianos, piano four-hands, two pianos and percussion instruments, two pianos and orchestra, three pianos, four pianos etc. Only in Belgrade they have premiered more than 20 contemporary pieces by Serbian and foreign composers, some of whom write pieces especially for the duo.

LP Duo is actively working on improving the presentation of classical music, and its popularization. Many of their concerts have a unique visual identity (special light designs or video works) and they sometimes perform in places other than the standard concert venues. They have a special cooperation with the stage director Nikola Zavišić. They are about to finish their recording session in Germany for an album comprising pieces by Danish composer Kim Helweg. LP Duo told us: "Music Biennale Zagreb is of one the most important festivals of contemporary music in the world and we are delighted to be a part of it in its jubilee year, with two concerts, no less."

Since the founding of the Zagreb Music Academy in 1921, the Music Academy Symphony Orchestra and Choir gather students of all departments and study years and are thus the representative ensembles of the Academy. In its performances of the stylistically varied and complex repertoire, the Orchestra collaborated with many artists, such as Nikša Bareza, Igor Kuljerić, Zoran Juranić, Vladimir Kranjčević, Uroš Lajovic, Milan Horvat, Igor Gjardov, Pavle Dešpalj, Saša Britvić and others. The Music Academy Symphony Orchestra and Choir regularly perform interpretatively very demanding pieces such as Bach's St John Passion, Brahms' German Requiem, Mendelssohn's oratorios Elijah and St Paul, Mahler's Second and Eight Symphonies and Beethoven's Ninth, Mozart's Requiem, Orff's Carmina Burana, Boris Papandopulo's Istrian Frescos, Honegger's dramatic oratorio Jeanne d'Arc, Britten's War Requiem etc. Besides the orchestra and the choir, the soloists of the Singing Department of the Academy have also accomplished many prominent opera projects in the past two decades, in collaboration with various theatres, amongst which an excellent collaboration with the „Komedija" theatre in Zagreb. Encouraged by the high-leveled performance of its orchestra and choir, the Music Academy of Zagreb, in collaboration with the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, organizes the Academic Concert Cycle since 2001, which features performances of Academy's ensembles only. A prominent place is reserved for solistic performances of its best students. The Symphony Orchestra is led by Mladen Tarbuk, while the Choir is led by Jasenka Ostojić Radiković.

The Croatian Radio Television Symphony Orchestra already performed, as a smaller ensemble, as early as 1930. The Zagreb Radio Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1951, achieving a reputation and success both at home and abroad, under the direction of its first conductor Antonio Janigro and later under Stjepan Šulek and Pavle Dešpalj. Its subsequent prominent conductors include  Pavel Dešpalj, Krešimir Šipuš, Josef Daniel, Oskar Danon, Milan Horvat, Uroš Lajovic, Vladimir Kranjčević and Nikša Bareza. Among the conductors and soloists who have worked with this ensemble are Lovro Matačić, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Szering, Aldo Ciccolini, Dubravka Tomšič-Srebotnjak, Ivo Pogorelić, Mstislav Rostropović, Edita Gruberová, José Carreras and Barbara Hendricks. In addition to regular concerts and their official duties (participating in radio and TV programmes), the Orchestra gives guest performances in many places at home and abroad. It performs both the classical and the contemporary repertoire, makes recordings and broadcasts, and furthermore takes special care of the Croatian musical heritage and contemporary works.

The graduates of the Music Academy in Zagreb, in the class of Prof. Josip Nochta, founded the Zagreb Saxophone Quartet, which has been performing in the present line-up since 1989. They have performed with numerous orchestras under the baton of esteemed conductors. The ZSQ has given performances, highly acclaimed both by critics and audiences, at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Split Summer Festival, Zagreb Music Biennale Europhonia, Musicora Festival Julian Rachlin & Friends, NOMUS, Saxophonia and the World Saxophone Congresses. The ZSQ has received important Croatian awards for their achievements in culture (Milka Trnina, Judita) and seven Croatian Porin Awards for their recordings. Along with radio- and TV recordings in Croatia and abroad, the ZSQ has released their own albums, Croatian Music for Saxophones and Z Quartet, a CD in the US, Tsunagari, and played as guests on numerous CDs. Their repertoire includes pieces originally written for a saxophone quartet, as well as transcriptions and arrangements of pieces by various composers belonging to different periods and styles, ranging from the baroque to progressive jazz. In addition to this, the ensemble has premièred more than fifty new works by Croatian, Slovene and other composers.

The Croatian Radio-Television Choir was founded in 1940ies in the tradition of Zagreb’s madrigalists. Initially a chamber ensemble under the direction of Mladen Pozajić and then Slavko Zlatić, in time this choir grew and became the first professional choir in Croatia. Its artistic identity was formed by number of distinguished musicians, and after conductor Igor Kuljerić its today’s chief-conductor Tonči Bilić is continuing along this path.
The choir was awarded the Milka Trnina award for exceptional achievements in 2004 based on the rendering of Croatian Mass by Boris Papandopulo, and in 2005 the same composition, conducted by Tonči Bilić was recorded on a CD for Cantus. The Choir won the Best Record Award Porin for the album of the year in the category of classical music. In 2007 a CD recording titled Kako jelen vrilo traži with Igor Kuljerić’s composition Križu, daj nam ti milosti conducted by Tonči Bilić was released under Orfej/HRT and won the Porin award for the best composition written for soloists or smaller ensemble. 
In 1998 the Choir started practicing a cappella type of singing systematically, as well as singing with accompaniment, under the leadership of its chief-conductor Tonči Bilić. Thus the Sfumato cycle of six seasonal concerts was created with the intent of introducing the Choir’s audience into the works of Croatian music heritage, master-pieces and less known works from the classic literature as well as with the newest achievements in choir music in Croatia and around the world. This concert cycle has a visual component as well which can be read from the title - Spiritual sounds, colours and forms. The cycle is being realized with the support of the Mimara Museum where the concerts are regularly held.