During almost 20 years of their existence, soloists, conductors, concert halls, festivals, continents, composers, scores and concepts changed but not their spiritual platform – the recent 20th and the current 21st-century music. The milieu from which the Music Biennale Zagreb (MBZ) – as the Ensemble’s program and conceptual nucleus – stemmed, had, interestingly, never seriously considered founding an institutionalized ensemble that would support and continue its unconventional, and sometimes even avant-garde pulse between the festivals. It is possible that in the musical abundance of the 1980s it was enough to hear the contemporary sound on stage once every two years, while during the war and post-war years there was no incentive for this initiative. But there was in 2001 – Biennale was just around the corner with a ready repertoire, and Zagreb was full of experienced (and young) musicians. For that particular occasion, the temporary resident ensemble was established, but it was so wonderfully good that the MBZ’s spark lit the fire and the fate has bestowed on it permanence and stability. It stopped being merely “temporary”, and a short while later it took the name Cantus (a Latin word for singing). Its mission was set. They “… insisted on an approach in which the presentation of the occasional avant-garde music is not a goal in itself, but merely the foundation on which interpretation is built.” (Trpimir Matasović, 2009).