Croatian-Slovenian composer
Juraj Marko Žerovnik is the first recipient of the Milko Kelemen Award from the Croatian Composers' Society and the Music Biennale Zagreb. The award also included the creation of
Coalescence, a piece inspired by the quest for coherence and cohesion – processes that arise from the amalgamation and conflict of seemingly incompatible elements. Juraj Marko often combines rational structures with materials from popular culture “whose primary intention is to unconsciously and emotionally affect the consumer (listener)”.
Coalescence reflects this approach through two contrasting sections: the first is lethargic and hermetic, while the second brings liberation and vivacity. The form of the piece reflects the composer’s own journey from pressure to rediscovering joy.
Composer, pedagogue, conductor, and founder of the Music Biennale Zagreb,
Milko Kelemen studied music in Zagreb and trained with Olivier Messiaen, Wolfgang Fortner, and at the Siemens Studio for Electronic Music in Munich. He taught at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, and at the conservatories in Düsseldorf and Stuttgart. He was a researcher, an adventurer, a visionary and an initiator, a true creative who captivated people’s attention with his personality and charisma.
Die sieben Plagen is a solo version of a segment of the opera
Apocalyptica. The piece explores pollution and environmental destruction through apocalyptic imagery, while seven personifications of suffering deliver their messages in simple, visual language in German, French and English, in the style of Biblical poetry.
Slovenian composer, clarinetist and pedagogue
Uroš Rojko studied composition in Ljubljana, Freiburg and Hamburg, and teaches at the Ljubljana Academy of Music. He wrote
Neofonia at the urging of conductor Steven Loy and the Neofonia Ensemble, inspired by Sarajevo as a symbol of multiculturalism and resistance, as well as by his own composition
In memoriam Tomaž Lorenz. Rather than relying on invention, the piece is shaped by the choice of material, with a pervasive motif of constant “falling”: in the first movement as a subtle glissando of the wind instruments, in the second, by means of second interval impulses, condensed in polyrhythmic relationships. Their echoes – quiet, distant tones – seem like tears sliding down a sonic field. The falling is also reflected in the chordal beats of the piano and vibraphone, but the effect is an illusion – the lower tone constantly disappearing, while a new one appears in a higher register. The final movement brings an intertwining of rhythmic figures symbolising resistance, juxtaposed to microinterval lines in the opposite direction, culminating in an undulating
Shepard glissando, which constantly reflect the outlines of defiant “opposition”. After the Sarajevo premiere, Uroš added a double bass in 2021, expanding the soundscape and solidifying the structure of the piece.
Jawher Matmati is a composer, cellist and engineer from Tunisia. He graduated in Arabic music and was a member and conductor of the Tunisian Symphony Orchestra. He is currently studying composition at the CNSMDP in Paris. He also does music engraving and typography . The piece
Katharsis gives voice to a disturbed saxophone, full of anxiety and frustration. It erupts in a maddening wave, evoking a visceral image of a salmon swimming upstream to rejoin its shoal or a panicked bull faced with an invisible matador. Anchored in the high register, the swaying sound of the accordion attempt to distract it, while the cello soothes with its gentle harmonics. Vain attempts! No less fragile than a beautiful sandcastle before the tide. A gradual breathlessness sets in, bringing about a well-earned relief.
Composer and pedagogue
Ivo Malec studied in Zagreb under the mentorship of Milo Cipra and in Paris with Olivier Messiaen, where he later collaborated with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and taught composition at the Paris Conservatory. His piece
Miniatures for Lewis Carroll was created as a result of a call to compose music for an abstract film inspired by Lewis Carroll’s poem
Jabberwocky. By his own account, Malec was immediately captivated by the poems of this unusual author, whose nonsensical verses managed to convey an equal measure of surprise, gentleness and wordplay. He approached the composition with the intention of creating music that, like Carroll, did not follow logical discourse, but relied on surprise and unpredictability.
Miniatures rely on attention to detail, design and painting of minute sonic surfaces, avoiding lower registers and creating music that unfolds through clear sounds and whimsical turns of phrase, producing an impression of playfulness and wonder.
Maja Bosnić is a Serbian composer and performer of experimental music focused on absurdity, limitations, unexpected outcomes and interaction with the audience. She received her doctorate degree in composition at Goldsmiths in London and teaches at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. She found inspiration for the piece in the surreal news items about death. Searching for expressions like “a lot of death”, “lots of death”, “too much death”, “too many death”, she came across a forum discussion about Shakespeare, where the sentence “it’s just lots of death and gore to me” struck a chord and took on a bizarre meaning in the context of contemporary events. This inspired the idea for the composition Just Lots of DEATH and GORE for orchestra, video, and electronics, which will be performed at the end of the year, while its reduced version, A Bit Less DEATH and GORE, will premiere at MBZ 33.
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The Cantus Ensemble has been researching and promoting contemporary music for more than twenty years, performing works by Croatian and international composers. Founded at the Zagreb Music Biennale in 2001, under the leadership of Berislav Šipuš, the ensemble has become a veritable institution on the domestic and international scene, with over 130 premieres and numerous festival appearances.
Soprano Lidija Horvat Dunjko, acclaimed for playing more than 30 opera roles on stages across the globe, today teaches at the Academy of Music in Zagreb.
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Lidija Horvat Dunjko, soprano
Marko Špehar, bas-bariton
Berislav Šipuš, conductor
Cantus Ensemble
Juraj Marko Žerovnik: Coalescence*, for chamber ensemble
Milko Kelemen: Die sieben Plagen, for solo voice
Uroš Rojko: Neofonia***, for chamber ensemble
Jawher Matmati: Katharsis, for alto saxophone, accordion and cello
Ivo Malec: Miniatures pour Lewis Carroll, for chamber ensemble
Maja Bosnić: A bit less DEATH and GORE***, for chamber ensemble
*premiere – commissioned by the 33rd MBZ from the first recipient of the Milko Kelemen Award for young composers
***premiere
program collaboration - Cantus Ensemble
