CA 20 za 20 #4 - flutist Ana Batinica presents a piece by Sanda Majurec

Sanda Majurec: Un soffio, un sospiro - Ana Batinica, alto flute

The first female author in the celebratory cycle 20 for 20 is a long-term collaborator of the Cantus Ensemble, who has performed her music in Croatia, but also on their concert tours abroad, on both sides of the ocean. Sanda Majurec is an award-winning composer from the class of Stanko Horvat, and also a harpsichordist. It is also her music that will conclude this year's concert season of the Cantus Ensemble, a collective that Sanda views as an important participant in the creation and life of music. Sanda's oeuvre contains many pieces that showcase the flute in different instrumental combinations, but also feature different types of instruments from the flute family.

She composed Un soffio, un sospiro for alto or bass flute for the Italian flutist Luisa Sello, who premiered it as a part of a music theatre program subtitled Pierrot Solaire (Sunny Pierrot), performed at the the Zagreb Music Biennale in 2009.

The background story and the melancholy atmosphere of Sunny Pierrot served as the inspiration for this composition, interpreted this time by Ana Batinica, an award-winning musician and the first flute of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. Ana inherited the position in the Cantus Ensemble from one of the "founding members", Dani Bošnjak in 2017. Although officially a member of the ensemble, for three seasns, Ana has been collaborating with the ensemble for the last 10 years and in this work she is happy to explore extended playing techniques, which she says bring her closer to her instrument. She sees the ensemble as a "microcosm that mirrors the society and the time we live in".

Ana performs Sanda Majurec's composition on the alto flute, which she opted for due to the special velvety tone and greater tonal possibilities.

Reflecting on the interpretation of the talented flutist, the author is pleased to point out that “Ana embodied Sunny Pierrot just as I would have imagined her: imaginative, gentle, melancholic, and yet with a lot of events ‘between notes’. I think it's important to recognize what's going on 'between the notes' in my music."