Preliminary program of the MBZ announced

The preliminary program for the 2011 Music Biennale Zagreb and the details about the World New Music Days were the  topics of a press conference held on 20 April 2010. Jana Haluza, press office manager, led the press conference, while the Biennale\'s artistic director Berislav Šipuš and its head producer Nina Čalopek spoke of the program.

Berislav Šipuš emphasized that, in addition to the established conceptual features of the program, the Festival will celebrate its 50^th anniversary with concerts of anthological works which have marked the past five decades. The program will therefore feature the works by the Biennale\'s founders Milko Kelemen and Ivo Malec, as well as the Biennale\'s esteemed guests such as Igor Stravinski, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis, John Cage and Witold Lutosławki. A new monograph on the fifty years of the Music Biennale Zagreb (MBZ), edited by Erika Krpan, is also under preparation.

For its fiftieth birthday the Music Biennale Zagreb also initiated a new type of cooperation with all national theaters in Croatia. These theaters will premiere new music scene works of Croatian authors. Following that, the works should become a part of the theaters\' regular season and a "mutual" tour of these productions should be organized with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. The Croatian National Theater Ivan pl. Zajc will premiere the opera Stribor\'s forest by Ivan Josip Skender, the Croatian National Theater in Split should premiere the opera Marshal by Silvio Foretić, which was inspired by the movie Marshal directed by Vinko Brešan, and the Croatian National Theater in Osijek should premiere a new opera by Sanja Drakulić. Along with these three operas, there will also be a premiere of two ballets - the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb will hold a premiere of a ballet by Krešimir Seletković, which will be performed by the Ballet of the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb, while the theater in Varaždin will premiere a ballet based on the music by Fran Đurović and choreographed by Massimiliano Volpini.

Apart from this music scene cooperation, guest performances of orchestras for the Biennale\'s evening performances have also been arranged. The Choir and the Orchestra of the Academy of Music will open the Festival, while the Witold Lutosławski Philharmonic from Wroclaw, the Verona Arena Orchestra, the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra and the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra will also appear at the Biennale. Conducted by Mladen Tarbuk, students will perform Stravinski and Malec\'s works, the orchestra from Wroclaw will perform the works by Kuljerić and Lutosławski under the baton of Tonči Bilić and accompanied by the Croatian Radio and Television Choir and the marimbist Ivana Bilić, while the Verona Arena Orchestra will perform accompanied by exceptionally many soloists (which we have already reported on) under the baton of Marko Letonja. The Croatian Radio and Television Orchestra will perform the works by important Croatian composers and academicians Stanko Horvat and Natko Devčić, conducted by a doyen Nikša Bareza, while the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra will, under the baton of Krzysztof Penderecki, perform his Horn Concerto (soloist: Radovan Vlatković), Turmmusik by Berislav Sakač and Symphony by Srećko Bradić, a new work which was commissioned by the Philharmonic. The compositions that will be competing at the World New Music Days competition will also be performed at these latter three concerts.

One of the topics at the press conference was the World Music Days competition, to be held from 10 to 15 April 2011, which will be hosted by the Music Biennale Zagreb. The applications for the World New Music Days competition can be submitted until 1 August, and in October the competition jury consisting of Luc Brewaeys (composer, conductor and pianist from Belgium), Benet Casablancas (composer and musicologist from Spain), Giampaolo Coral (composer from Italy), Nikša Gligo (musicologist from Croatia), Lojze Lebič (composer from Slovenia) and Marko Ruždjak (composer from Croatia) will make its selection. Berislav Šipuš will coordinate the jury\'s work. According to the terms and conditions of the International Society for Contemporary Music, at least 55 compositions will be selected, with a minimum of one composition from each member state of the ISCM, as per "republic" criterion, as Berislav Šipuš dubbed it. All ensembles available to composers as possible performing ensembles come from Croatia, while the tamboura orchestra (the Croatian Radio and Television Tamboura Orchestra) seems particularly interesting to composers at the moment.

Nina Čalopek also emphasized the cooperation with the Multimedia institute MAMA, which has started in 2001. This year MAMA, headed by producer Petar Milat, will feature three dance projects at the Music Biennale Zagreb, one of which is a Croatian project, which will be preceded by electronic music programs and two programs by the Zeitkratzer ensemble (already reported at this site) performed at the Zagreb Dance Center.

Biennale\'s afternoon performances will be reserved for compositions competing at the World New Music Days competition. There will also be a program of anthological 20^th-century piano music works which will be performed by Croatian pianists, including Katarina Krpan, Damir Gregurić and Bruno Vlahek.  The Festival will most probably host performances by the pianists from Belgrade, LP Duo, who will perform the works by Stockhausen, Cage and Kagel, as well as the Würzburg Theater Ballet with a new ballet based on the music of German composers.

At the close of the conference, the new look of the MBZ\'s web site was pointed out to the attendees, who also heard compositions by Fran Đurović and Serban Nichifor, which won at the competition for the MBZ WEB musical composition and which will soon become an integral part of this site.

At the photo (from left): Nina Čalopek, Berislav Šipuš, Jana Haluza and Trpimir Matasović (Radio 101), press conference, Croatian composers\' Society (HDS), 20 April 2010