Austia / USA

Elisabeth Harnik, piano; Dave Rempis, alto and tenor saxophones; Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello, electronics; Tim Daisy, drums, percussion

Elisabeth Harnik, an accomplished Austrian-based pianist and composer, is connected to Slovenia both by descent and through her concert activity with various bands. She has launched the Earscratcher project to celebrate her 50th birthday and to embark on new musical adventures, but the pandemic thwarted her plans. Now the quartet have finally set off on their first tour. 
As an improviser, Harnik works within an electroacoustic-inspired sound-world, using specific preparations and extended techniques while pushing the limitations of the piano. Her performances draw on physicality and introspection, intuitive playing and high precision. Employing a unique approach to her instrument, as well as to composition, Harnik likes to combine her signature post-dodecaphonic modernism with free jazz, improvisation and acoustoelectronics. 
Initially involved in the vibrant Austrian impro scene, Harnik has built an international career, working among others with Chicagoan avant-garde experts who casually transition from jazz to contemporary experimental music. This is how the Earscratcher quartet emerged, blurring the boundaries between composition and improvisation, blending tonality and atonality at a blistering pace, and unexpectedly coupling basic rhythmic coordinates with the richness of striking time loops. 

There are no more barriers, no divides between clarity and abstraction. We can look forward to a great deal of ad hoc reactions, vivid imagination, extreme auditory sensitivity, and synergy. What initially sounds like a hesitant exploration, instantaneously develops into an intriguing provocation, a desire for more and more. Let yourself be enchanted by this new music! (Partially sourced from Hannes Schweiger's promotional text)

http://elisabeth-harnik.at/
https://www.daverempis.com/bio/
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/fred-lonberg-holm
https://timdaisy.wordpress.com/
https://catalyticsound.com/

All artists are members of the creative music cooperative Catalytic Sound.

Drago Jančar, one of Slovenia’s most renowned and widely translated contemporary authors, recipient of numerous national and international awards for his outstanding work, including the Prešeren Award and four Kresnik Awards, returns with a new, deeply personal novel, Ob nastanku sveta.

The author will discuss his work with the director of Beletrina Academic Press, Mitja Čander.

Ob nastanku sveta (Upon the Creation of the World) is a story of as yet inexistent world that is “predestined” to come into being before our very eyes. The epic story of life that is epic precisely because it unfolds before the eyes of the individual, thus being unique and unparalleled. However, it is unfathomably hard to imagine that this imperfect world, which has become ours because we came to know it as we did and interpreted it as best we could, would one day be gone. 

The talk will be held in Slovenian.

Lea Mihevc, voice, piano
Nik Žnidaršič, dramaturgy

Urša Premik, photos
Špela Ema Veble, MUA


 

The music-theatre performance Where Are You From, Girl by actress and musician Lea Mihevc, which receives its premiere at Cankarjev dom, addresses the difference between the public and the intimate as a metaphor for the relationship between foreign lands and home. Through voice, body, and above all, different music genres, the actress searches for potential openings in the established forms, expectations, even clichés, through which truth could penetrate in the form of an inner voice – intimacy. 

She juxtaposes a series of dualities, connecting, distinguishing, and resolving them. In an exploration of role-playing, she seeks to determine what's hers and what belongs to other people. What it means to be available to another in terms of acting – and being human. When, if at all, do role-playing and the need to belong disappear.

Rohan Dasgupta: Sitar, Pandit Sanju Sahai: Tabla

World-renowned Sitar maestro Rohan Dasgupta and Tabla maestro Pandit Sanju Sahai will create a magical meditative atmosphere of the authentic spirit of India at the Cankarjev dom hall.

The performance of Indian artists is a contribution to the call for Peace through Culture - Pax Cultura, a call for constant, consistent and courageous protection of Culture, to save the living tissue of Culture. It contains beneficial energy of the human spirit, connecting us with the world of Beauty and the Supreme Truth. "In art,” wrote Rabindranath Tagore, “our inner essence sends its response to the Supreme Creator who reveals himself to us through the world of endless beauty, which is above the colorless world of facts."

It is about continuation of the thoughts and actions of great creators, messengers of the coming spiritual Culture – Culture of Peace, such as were Roerich and Tagore, Kosovel in our country. Culture uplifts the spirit through creativity, that universal language understood by the heart - the language of Peace.

 

Rohan Dasgupta was born into a musical family, and started to learn the deep art of Indian classical music from a tender age, he lived with his illustrious Guru for years and have perfected the art of Sitar playing with sincere devotion and constant learning, the deep philosophy of Indian music and its purpose reflects wisdom of the ancient times that he absorbed during his learning process from several masters of the art form.

Today, Rohan Dasgupta is an experienced performer, composer and teacher. Apart from his classical Sitar solo recitals in several music festivals in India and around the world, he co-creates with international projects and combines Western classical/jazz and traditional Indian music. He conducted masterclasses at the Conservatories of Milan and Rome and other music schools across Europe. He is the recipient of numerous music awards and has performed in more than 16 countries around the world.

Rohan Dasgupta has a special bond with Slovenia. He is the co-founder and artistic director of the cultural and artistic association Raga Slovenia along with his Slovenian wife, which brings Indian classical music to Slovenia and brings Indian culture and tradition closer to us through live concerts and educational programs.
 

Pandit Sanju Sahai is one of the leading Tabla players of his time. His family has been playing the Tabla for six generations. As a child prodigy, he had his first solo performance at just nine years old, graduating with a degree in music at thirteen and a master’s degree at eighteen. He is known for enchanting audiences with his power and virtuosity. His exceptional popularity in the field of traditional Indian classical music has opened new opportunities for him to collaborate with musicians of various genres from around the world: jazz, flamenco, opera, western classical music, hip hop, folk ...

Don’t miss this unique musical and spiritual experience!

The legendary Macedonian guitarist and singer is returning to Cankarjev dom. We will hear several of his greatest hits, including Jovano, Jovanke, Makedonsko devojče, Čuvam noć od budnih, Čukni vo drvo, as well as songs played on acoustic guitar. Vlatko Stefanovski started playing guitar at the age of 13. In his late teens, he founded Leb i sol which soon grew to become one of the most popular bands on the music scene of the former Yugoslavia. 
The band played a special genre of music, a blend of traditional Macedonian rhythms and modern rock. Stefanovski has worked with a variety of distinguished musicians, most notably Miroslav Tadić, Teodosij Spasov, Vera Miloševska Josifovska and many others.

In cooperation with the Embassy of North Macedonia.

The international symposium places focus on individual chapters of fine art during the Interwar Period addressed by the exhibition. The artists embarked on their professional careers in challenging times, an era unfavourable to the arts that was marked by economic crisis, political tension in the Kingdom and the struggle to sustain the growth of culture and the arts. The Independents mostly studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (two of them graduated from the Prague academy), a venerable institution of learning that provided them with in-depth expert knowledge and focused on studying French and Spanish art. At the time, the general reversal towards realism in art and contemporary French art played a very important part in the establishment of subdued modernism and the so-called colour realism, a style in which The Independents also worked. On the other hand, Croatian art, in particular, raised the issues of socially engaged art and very role of art in society, which left an important mark on art criticism and some of the most prominent artists. 

Aimed at both professionals in the field and the general public, the symposium seeks to shed light on the work of individual artists, devote attention to the emergence of new stylistic orientations in fine arts in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the embeddedness of artists in the international art world, the relationship between art and politics (both at the highest level of the Kingdom and the illegal political activities of some artists and their contacts), as well as address the issue of erecting and demolishing commemorative monuments, the compiling of collections and exhibiting in the Interwar Period. 

Organized in cooperation with the Slovenian Art History Society.
 

Drago Ivanuša, piano, electronics; Vita Kobal, violin; Urška Supej, electric guitar; Lola Mlačnik, percussion; Žiga Golob, double bass

Drago Ivanuša’s MAGNETIK Quintet, a follow-up to the project Dviganje glasu /The Raising of the Voice, was developed as a musical exploration of the inner voice. The quintet members come from different musical backgrounds and belong to different generations.

MAGNETIK brings together unique individuals who – through Ivanuša's compositions that continue to resonate with La Béte Humaine’s impassioned piano solo – search for attraction and opposites, mutuality and deviation. Their music mirrors a view on interpersonal relationships and conflicts in our rapidly changing world and the position of the individual in the midst of growing chaos. Is utopia still possible? Does society still exist? Is any kind of change possible? Can art be the answer to the world’s vulgarity and perversion? Or at least a good question?

Mutual attraction, empathy, and collaboration constitute magnetism, the Voice is raised, now is the time to...
 

Original music with a focus on interplay, groove, creativity, dynamic and energy with plenty of room for improv.

One of the most exciting trios on the European jazz scene these days brings together some of the best Norwegian and Swedish musicians. “The music on this album is frenetic and exciting, with a powerhouse rhythm section and an excellent front line”, read a review of Live in Europe, a triple album that included a live recording of their 2016 Jazz Festival Ljubljana set and has been one of the last decade’s top-rated albums. The Ljubljana concert will feature tracks from their new album released on the famous ECM label. A great comeback by one of the world's leading jazz drummers today.