A talk with Dušan Jovanović’s associates and collaborators will take place within the context of the exhibition Dušan Jovanović – Cultural Terrorist.

While pursuing the artistic career of a stage director, Dušan Jovanović constantly created new theatre collectives. He gathered people around him who inspired him and embraced his incredible creative vision. They often remained part of his productions and his life for longer periods of time. Milena Zupančič, Meta Hočevar, Saša Pavček and Drago Ivanuša will talk about his work, unrealised ideas and his personality, also relating personal anecdotes.

The talk will be hosted by Patricija Maličev.

Running time: 70 min

Goran Farkaš, vocal, tradicional instruments; Marko Pernić, accordion; Marijan Jelenić, guitar; Sebastijan Demark, bass; Endi Oblak, percussion

A folk music gem from the heart of Istria. These are some of the plaudits the Croatian media are heaping on Veja, the music group formed in Pazin almost two decades ago. Back then, Goran Farkaš, singer, multi-instrumentalist, musicologist and avid researcher of folk traditions, recruited a group of musicians to put theory into practice.

Veja’s original compositions reflect a wide variety of musical influences and elements that have come to define Istria as a result of its geographical location. The diverse musical styles, from Dinaric to Italian tunes, as well as more obscure traditions, legends, tales and sagas, represent the sonic amalgamation of Istria that has become Veja's hallmark. Incidentally, Veja take their name from a ritual wake.

Their 2014 debut album, Dolina mlinova, was released after a lengthy period of polishing up their act and selecting the best songs. The tracks Anka, Marija and Črni orko were instant hits and went on to occupy a special place on the Croatian music scene. Above all, the debut album raised Veja’s visibility, opening the door to local and international venues. Veja sold out clubs across Croatia, and played folk festivals in Italy, France, Estonia, Belgium, Portugal, etc. The highly anticipated second album, the vinyl LP Škura ura, was released on the Menart label in 2022. Even before the pandemic, it was heralded by the first single Teško majki, which justified and solidified Veja's growing reputation as a band masterfully navigating Istria’s traditional musical heritage and using a modern approach to reach new generations.

Their debut CD Club performance will feature Veja’s biggest hits, as well as the tracks from their upcoming third album, scheduled for release later this year.


The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.

Joëlle Léandre, double bass; Elisabeth Harnik, piano; Zlatko Kaučič, drums

Legends of the world of improvisation and virtuosity – French double bassist Joëlle Léandre, Austrian pianist and composer Elisabeth Harnik and Slovenian percussionist Zlatko Kaučič – have joined forces in this explosive trio. Long-standing friends and partners in creativity released the album Live in St. Johann last year. With the three of them on our CD Club stage, expect an electrifying performance abounding in expression and originality.


The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.

Following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the new US President, with the help of the world's richest man, Elon Musk, we are witnessing an even stronger alliance between politics and technology, which jointly create a fertile ground for various conspiracy theories and the global rise of fascism. 

The next Critical Cabaret guest at Cankarjev dom is the American historian Eric Kurlander, whose book Hitler's Monsters is more relevant than ever. As a great expert on contemporary German history, Kurlander has spent years exploring the Nazi preoccupation with the supernatural, the occult and the esoteric, which provided the underlying ideology of the Third Reich and the basis for its establishment.  

Eric Kurlander teaches history at Stetson University in Florida and holds a PhD from Harvard University. In addition to Hitler's Monsters, Kurlander is an acclaimed author of The Price of Exclusion: Ethnicity, National Identity, and the Decline of German Liberalism, 1898–1933 and Living with Hitler: Liberal Democrats in the Third Reich. He has published scholarly articles in some of the world's major periodicals, has received grants from many esteemed institutions, and several accolades for his achievements as an educator.

In conversation with Srećko Horvat, Eric Kurlander will touch upon many hitherto unknown, under-researched and startling historical facts about the true nature and influence of conspiracy theories, the occult and the esoteric in Nazi ideology. 

Given the current state of our world, crises aggravated by tectonic shifts in politics and social networks, this past is repeating itself to haunt us not in the future, but in the present. These are some of the issues raised by the exciting new season of Critical Cabaret, a Cankarjev dom series curated by Patricija Maličev and Srećko Horvat.
 

Two new episodes of the TV series Primeri inšpektorja Vrenka (Inspector Vrenko Investigates), an adaptation of the book Pohorska transverzala, will be broadcast on 23 February. In cooperation with RTV Slovenija, we are organising a talk dedicated to the comparison of crime novels and detective TV series. In addition to the author August Demšar, the guests will include Slobodan Maksimović, director of the abovesaid TV series, and the lead actor Dario Varga.

The talk will be hosted by Igor E. Bergant. 

The event will be held in Slovenian, without translation.
 

The author visit is taking place within the context of the 57th International Writers' Meeting at Bled, Slovenia, organised by the Slovenian PEN Centre and the Writers for Peace Committee with a main focus on Climate Crisis and Wars, and at the initiative of the Mladinska knjiga publishing house. 

The talk – as the opening event of this year's Bled International PEN meeting, is dedicated to Paolo Giordano's latest novel, Tasmania, which captures the fear, anxiety, wonder, and beauty of our time of uncertainty, exploring how we can create and maintain relationships with other people when it feels increasingly difficult to connect. The novel depicts a world hit by a new crisis every day – floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, wars – and whose future is becoming increasingly uncertain. His past marred by personal disappointments, a writer, Paolo sets out in search of connection and purpose at a tipping point with climate change and global upheavals. His anguish exemplifies the broader crisis of an entire generation, characters struggling to find their own Tasmania – a safe haven in which to weather the coming crises.

Best-selling Italian writer Paolo Giordano is the Strega Prize–winning author of The Solitude of Prime Numbers (2010). He is also the author of the critically acclaimed books Like Family and The Human Body. In Slovenian translation, Mladinska knjiga has published The Solitude of Prime Numbers (La solitudine dei numeri primi, 2010), The Human Body (Il corpo umano, 2013), Heaven and Earth (Divorare il cielo, 2020) and How Contagion Works (Nel contagio, 2020). His books have been translated into more than thirty languages and sold millions of copies.

The author event will be hosted by literary translator and Jungian psychotherapist, Breda Biščak. The talk will be held in English and Slovenian with simultaneous translation.  
 
 

Running time: 70 minutes

Igor Matković, trumpet; Lenart De Bock, saxophone; Jani Moder, guitar; Samo Hude, keyboards; Peter Smrdel, double bass; Žiga Smrdel, drums

Renowned Slovenian trumpeter, composer, producer and educator Igor Matković’s new project, Pocket.Star, opens the door to a world of introspection and exploration of today’s human experience. His new album fuses jazz with contemporary musical influences, while still seeing improvisation as an act of freedom that rethinks relationships, calls for empathy and bears responsibility.

Pocket.Star is an idea that explores sufficiency – appreciating the given rather than constantly searching for "more", which tends to lead us away from what’s essential. It raises questions about how individuals and society can make responsible use of the resources that already exist, not only material or technological resources, but also human resources. At the same time, it stresses connectedness – not only with each other, but above all with one's own values and inner needs, which tend to get overlooked in a world of rapid technological progress and ever-increasing expectations.

Matković has carved out his musical career with albums such as Sonic Motion, Motion in Two Dimensions, State of Ku and Ephemeral Lake. These releases provided a vehicle for exploring a wide spectrum of idioms – from traditional jazz to atmospherics, subtleties and stories that transcend the usual boundaries of the genre. As a co-founder of Ecliptic, he released the albums Path Of 01 and Trash Society, and an eponymous album with Ground Ritual.

Recently, he has explored music also as a producer, with digital releases of singles. In collaboration with the duo Freekind Matković wrote the track Bad Moves, and in his own right the singles Corner Light and Pocket Star. The creative process for this project involves a combination of studio recording and home production work, which helps to define the compositional structure, while leaving room for exploration of musical ideas.

The new album, Pocket.Star, is a build-up of Matković's musical explorations – music that pushes back the boundaries of genre. It was made in collaboration with young music talents, representatives of a new generation of artists with a convincing and individual musical style. The music thus conveys the authenticity, connectedness and sincerity of the project creators.

Pocket.Star asks the question: Are we still capable of listening to ourselves and the world around us? As a society, have we been blinded by the idea of progress to the extent of forgetting about self-reflection, which might point us in new directions? Perhaps the necessary tools have long been within our reach.


The Cankarjevi torki concerts are available at a discounted price as part of the AD HOC subscription series.

Hosted by: dr. Slavoj Žižek

Dr. Jure Simoniti: What Remains of Hamlet After Death?
Hamlet is a play of words, about words and against words. In reinterpreting what is perhaps the world literature’s most interpreted text, we will seek to answer the question that has repeatedly puzzled its interpreters: Why is Hamlet greater than the story that puts him on stage? Why can't the story of a father’s ghost, a murderous uncle and an adulterous mother fill the heart of its hero to the brim? Beyond the manifest surface of a revenge tragedy, a play of appearances and illusions, and the Oedipal "family novel", we recognise a drama of a pre-modern consciousness seeking to construct an inner republic as the last place of immunity before the modern age finally infuses the subject’s core with mere words.

Dr. Jela Krečič: Reasons for Doubting Love
Philosophy, as well as contemporary studies of love, often contain analyses of the reasons for doubting love. Can theory serve the practice of love if love, as Alain Badiou puts it, is understood as an event that constitutes a factor crucial to the formation of a couple? What can we really know about love? Can any kind of certainty be guaranteed in love? Descartes' Meditations, and especially their Lacanian interpretation, open up a productive perspective on these questions, especially when these reflections are read alongside fictional treatments of love: from the tragic Hamlet and Ophelia to a Hollywood comedy of remarriage.

The event forms part of the Filozofija v (upo)rabi (Philosophy in Use) project, co-funded by the Slovenian Book Agency.

In Slovenian, with no translation.
 

Peter Ugrin, violin; Zmago Štih, accordion; Aljaž Bassin, guitar; Mykhailo Levit, guitar; Nikola Matošić, double bass

In this time of ever-increasing mass production and the profusion of available products, where primary emotions and feelings are so easily forgotten, Fanfare Romantique celebrates and extols emotions. In fact, the new album is an ode to romance, and the compositions, with a touch of classical, traditional charm of the 1930s and 1940s music, convey various emotions, passion and, above all, love.

Swingatan play exclusively their own, self-penned songs, highly original in terms of the different approaches to musical arrangement and compositional complexity. Written by all members of the band, each of the new album’s tracks bears its own stamp. So much more than just the gipsy jazz or swing it is grounded in, Swingatan's music evolved its own distinctive and original style with a touch of "Slavic swing".

The band released two albums, Swingin' Heaven (2019) and Swingatan Live (2021). Appearing in a romantic makeover and a reconfigured, even better fine-member outfit, Swingatan are making their CD Club debut with a new album, Fanfare Romantique.

Concept: Patricija Maličev and Srećko Horvat

Critical Cabaret returns to Cankarjev dom. The series begins with a young celebrity sociologist Nikolaj Schultz, who is making his first-time visit to Slovenia. 

Born in 1990, Nikolaj Schultz is a Danish sociologist whose research focuses on the consequences of climate change for social theory. He co-authored On The Emergence of an Ecological Class (Polity Books, 2022) with acclaimed French philosopher Bruno Latour (1947–2022).

Critical praise 

Schultz is also the author of Land Sickness, a hybrid text he describes as an “auto-ethnographic essay” on the sociological and existential issues of the Anthropocene. In recent years, he has become one of the founders of the “new existentialism for the Anthropocene.”

These are just some of the issues that Croatian philosopher Srećko Horvat will address with Nikolaj Schultz