Ivan Josip Skender

 

Ivan Josip Skender (born in Varaždin, 1981) is a composer and conductor, a versatile musician with a very broad scope of work. He began studying composition in 1997 at the Academy of Music in Zagreb in the class of Professor Željko Brkanović, as the youngest composition student in the Academy's history. In 1999, he also started parallel studies in conducting under Professor Vjekoslav Šutej. He later refined his skills through postgraduate studies in Vienna with Uroš Lajovic, as well as through seminars and workshops in composition (with Michael Jarell and Joszef Soproni) and conducting (with Klaus Arp, Bertrand de Billy, Zubin Mehta, and others).

 

His extensive and diverse body of work includes music for soloists, chamber ensembles, orchestras, choirs, theater productions, musicals, and the opera Šuma Striborova (with 27 performances, it is the most performed biennial opera). As a conductor, he has collaborated with numerous Croatian and international ensembles, and under his leadership, the Academic Choir "Palma" has won numerous awards both in Croatia and abroad. His conducting career is particularly dedicated to the performances and premieres of contemporary Croatian composers' works, and in 2012, the members of the Cantus Ensemble for Contemporary Music chose him as their permanent conductor.

 

From 2005 to 2019, he worked at the Opera of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb as a choir leader and conductor. He also served as the acting director of the HNK Opera in the 2013/2014 season. From 2009, he was an assistant to Professor Uroš Lajovic at the Music Academy in Zagreb, and since 2019, he has been permanently employed at the Music Academy as an assistant professor in the Department of Conducting. He won multiple awards and recognitions for his artistic work (Rector's Award, Stjepan Šulek Award, Milka Trnina Award, among others). Since 2019, he has been a member of the artistic leadership of the Music Biennale Zagreb, and since 2023, one of its artistic directors. In 2020, he was appointed a member of the Assembly of Representatives of the Croatian Composers' Society. In 2024, he became an associate member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

 

At the Assembly of the representatives of the members of the Croatian Composers' Society, held in June 2024, he was appointed vice president of the Croatian Composers' Society.