The past season of the Cantus Ensemble was highly intensive and gave rise to numerous new collaborations and plans that will come to fruition in the coming years. It all began with the regular performance at the Milko Kelemen Days in Slatina, where an intriguing program featuring works by the legendary Kelemen as well as three young contemporary composers – Dora Remenar, Helena Skljarov, and Linda Uran – was presented at the hall of the Public Open University.
The concert season started on Mondays, returning to its primary venue, the Small Hall of Vatroslav Lisinski, an ideal space for the size and acoustics characteristic of the ensemble, particularly suitable for performing Schönberg’s cult composition, Pierrot Lunaire.
The program, directed by Berislav Šipuš, celebrated essential anniversaries related to the lives and deaths of notable composers, including Elliott Carter, Jonathan Harvey, and Marko Ruždjak, who passed away ten years ago. Furthermore, significant milestones were acknowledged for Frano Đurović (50), Mladen Tarbuk (60), and Dubravko Detoni (85).
In Ruždjak’s piece La Frontera, the talented young soprano Irma Dragičević collaborated with the instrumentalists and successfully demonstrated her ability to interpret various musical styles.
The season’s second concert was exceptionally held on Saturday, December 19th, and featured the outstanding Italian cellist and former chief conductor of the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra – Enrico Dindo. He began with a solo performance of Sonatina III for cello, while Vedran Kocelj, a permanent member of the Cantus Ensemble and a trumpeter, followed with the rendition of Srđan Dedić’s Seven trumpets for solo trumpet.
The first part of the program concluded with Danijel Legin’s Capriccio for wind quintet, a young composer residing in Vienna. The program’s second part featured two generations of composers. Berislav Šipuš presented an impressive concertino titled Ad te for cello and ensemble, while Boris Jakopović premiered his new piece, Stage dimmed.
The third concert, Collisions, took place on February 13th by the ensemble’s regular conductor, Ivan Josip Skender. The concert showcased pieces composed by Györgyi Ligeti, Luigi Nono, and Gérard Grisey, representing different phases of 20th-century New Music.
Those were composed by Györgyi Ligeti (Chamber Concerto for 13 instrumentalists), Luigi Nono (Incontri for 24 instruments), and Gérard Grisey (Partiels for 18 musicians). Finally, a new era was introduced with Sanja Drakulić’s premiere of her composition Tabu for chamber ensemble.
The April concert of the season was simultaneously part of the 32nd Music Biennale Zagreb program, a festival from which Cantus Ensemble emerged as the festival orchestra at first. The program featured works by the Biennale’s founders, Milko Kelemen (Musik für Judith) and Ivo Malec (Dahovi), as well as synthetic compositions by Branko Sakač (Svemirski pejzaž) as well as Austrians Clemens Gadenstätter (FIGURE-ICONOSONICS I) and Olga Neuwirth (locus…doublure…solus). The highlight of the program – exceptionally held at Pogon Jedinstvo before a predominantly young audience – was the world premiere of a commissioned work, Möbius Strip, by Split composer Olja Jelaska. All the pieces, except Jelaska’s, were linked by electronics, which Višeslav Laboš expertly handled during the concert.
On May 15th, the season’s last concert was held, where Cantus Ensemble gave the stage to Turning Point, a similar-profile ensemble from Vancouver, Canada. Turning Point presented a selection of modern music from their vast country. The Canadian-born and naturalized composers list featured several notable names, including Murray Schafer, Michael Pepa, Michael Colgrass, Rita Ueda, Owen Underhill, and Ana Sokolović. Another rising talent, Helena Skljarov, was also included in this program and proudly witnessed the first performance of her dynamic new piece, Red-Haired Man.
At the very end of the season, as an addendum to their concert cycle, at Small Hall of Lisinski, Cantus Ensemble held a successful celebratory concert featuring works by Vjekoslav Nježić with the guest pianist Katarina Krpan and discreet assistance of electronic music.
To conclude, we offer our heartfelt congratulations on a successful season and hope for even more exhilarating concerts by our Cantus members at home and abroad.
