Zadar ~ Croatia
International Jury
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| Jasenka Ostojić | Viktorija Čop | Brett Scott | Cristiano Dell'Oste | Franz Jochum |
Jasenka Ostojić
Conductor Jasenka Ostojić is a full-time professor at the Academy of Music at the University of Zagreb. She teaches conducting courses, Choir and Chamber choir, with which she realizes outstanding vocal-instrumental projects that are praised by audiences and music critics. Since the academic year 2018/2019, she has also been a professor at the University of Sarajevo Music Academy (Bosnia and Herzegovina), where she teaches conducting and related vocational subjects. She is a lecturer and director of seminars and professional training programmes in the country and a guest lecturer at universities in Poland, Austria, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the USA. She is a jury member of expert committees at competitions for conductors, orchestras and choirs in the country and abroad (Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece). As a conductor of choirs and orchestras, she won dozens of national and international awards, including two international Grand Prix. She performs extensively at renowned festivals in Croatia, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Greece and the USA. She has conducted the world premieres of numerous composers, for whose performances she has received several special prizes. As a conductor, she has worked with the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Zagreb Soloists, the Croatian Chamber Orchestra, the Varaždin Chamber Orchestra, the OSRH Symphonic Wind Orchestra, the Croatian Radiotelevision Choir, and others. As part of the CEMAN project, she conducted an orchestra of students from 11 music academies from nine European countries at the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall and Teatro Verdi in Trieste (Italy) in 2018. She specializes in the vocal education of young singers at The Vienna Choir Boys. She worked as a conductor of the Zagreb Boys’ Choir and mentored numerous boys who performed as soloists in many national opera and concert productions. In 2006, she founded the Croatian society Collegium pro arte, which includes the recognised and award-winning choirs Cappella Zinka and Cappella Odak, as well as ensembles Odak Camerata and Ensemble Celeste, musical theatre. From 2012 to 2022 she worked as the artistic director of World Choir Festival on Musical in Thessaloníki, Greece. She attracts more and more attention with his composing and arranging work. She is the author of the default compositions for all categories of choirs that were performed at the Croatian Youth Music Festival in Varaždin held in 2019. She is a long-time member of the Administrative Council, the Program Committee and the president of the Programme Committee of the International Choir Competition in Zadar, as well as the State Committee and the Judging Committee of the Croatian Youth Music Festival in Varaždin. She is the editor of the collection Antologija hrvatske zborske glazbe (Anthology of Croatian Choral Music), published by the Zadar Concert Office in 2021. Since the academic year 2022/2023, she has been Vice-Rector for Arts, Culture and Interuniversity Cooperation at the University of Zagreb.
Viktorija Čop
Viktorija Čop was born in Zagreb. She graduated in composition and music theory in 2003 from the Zagreb Academy of Music in the class of Prof. Željko Brkanović with a scholarship from the Zagreb County. She completed her postgraduate master's degree in composition at the Faculty of Music in Utrecht, the Netherlands (Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht) in 2005 with a Huygens scholarship awarded by Nuffic – the Dutch organization for international cooperation in higher education. For her artistic work, she has received several awards and recognitions, including 1st prize for composition (European House Zagreb, 1998 and 1999, Bonn, 1998, Strasbourg, 1999), 3rd prize for the compositions "Out of Mind" for solo flute and "Per quatro mani" for bass clarinet and piano (Reichenau, Austria, 2001), the Rector's Award for the orchestral composition "Shadows of Sunken Colors" (2003), the Stjepan Šulek Fund Award for compositional work in 2007, for the orchestral composition "Adieu", and the Rudolf and Margita Matz Fund Award (2010). She has studied at various seminars: in Grožnjan (prof. Manana Kandelaki – Moscow), on Vis (prof. Nina Kogan – Moscow), on Hvar (prof. Irina Verchinina – Moscow), in Dubrovnik at the 5th Epta Piano School (prof. Alberto Portugheses – Argentina, Alfons Kontarsky – Germany, Nadia Lasserson – London, Frank Martin – London); 2nd International Music Festival, Fivizzano – Italy; International Summer School of Composition “Prague – Vienna – Budapest” in Reichenau, Austria (prof. Urbanner). In 2008, her author's concert was held in the hall of the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb, and in 2012, her author's album »Musical moments« was released, which was also nominated for the Porin discography award in the classical music category, best album of the year. Her opus includes thirty-seven compositions for orchestra, chamber ensembles and groups, and electronics. Her compositions are performed by numerous soloists and ensembles. Her compositions have been performed at the largest music festivals in Croatia (Zagreb Music Biennale, International Forum in Opatija), as well as abroad (Austria, Bulgaria, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Canada, USA, Japan, Iceland). In the 2015 ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) competition, her composition Makapaka (for piano) was chosen as the Croatian representative at the World Music Days 2016 festival in Tongyeong, South Korea. In addition to composing, in recent years she has also been engaged as a music director for television recordings of classical music concerts for HRT – Music Production, and as a collaborator-notographer, editor and reviewer in sheet music publishing at the Music Information Center (MIC) in Zagreb, the company Cantus d.o.o., and the publishing house Donemus (MuziekGroep Nederland) in the Netherlands. After becoming a member of the Croatian Association of Freelance Artists (2006–2010), she has also been involved in pedagogical work; initially as an assistant at the Academy of Arts in Osijek (J. J. Strossmayer University), and since 2010 as an assistant professor at the Institute for Church Music of the Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb.
Brett Scott
Brett Scott is Professor of Ensembles and Conducting at the UC's College-Conservatory of Music, where he conducts the CCM Chorale, teaches conducting and literature at the graduate and undergraduate level, and is Music Director of Opera d’arte, CCM’s undergraduate opera company. Under his direction, the CCM Chorale has released two commercial recordings, Lux Dei, New Works for Choir by Douglas Knehans, and Deus et Machina: Sacred Music for Choir and Electronics. Chorale’s current project is the world premiere recording of the English language version of Fredrik Sixten’s St. John Passion. The CCM Chorale has given multiple regional and world premieres by both American and international composers, including the North American premieres of Stabat Mater by Ivan Moody and Fredrick Sixten’s St. John Passion and the American premiere of Andrew Staniland’s Dark Star Requiem. Under his direction Opera d’arte has won numerous awards through the National Opera Association. Comfortable in front of a wide range of ensembles, Scott currently directs Cincinnati’s Musica Sacra and is the Musical Director of Coro Volante, a vocal ensemble dedicated to the performance and recording of music by living composers. Under his direction Coro Volante has released the recordings New Choral Voices volumes 2,3,4,5,6, and The Blessed Among Women, Weeping: Sacred Choral Music of Fr. Ivan Moody. Their recording of Requiem by composer Jeremy Beck was released in 2024, as well as You Are Illuminated: Choral Music of R. Murray Schafer. Past performances include Passion and Resurrection by Fr. Ivan Moody, and Little Match Girl Passion by David Lang. An acknowledged interpreter of contemporary music, Scott is in demand internationally as a lecturer on Canadian music and has presented at several national and international conferences. He was editor of Chorus America’s Research Memorandum Series, an Associate Editor of NCCO’s The Choral Scholar, and currently serves on the editorial board of the International Choral Magazine. He has written for several scholarly choral publications and is a contributor to the most recent New Grove Dictionary of American Music. His authorized biography of composer, educator and soundscape activist R. Murray Schafer, titled R. Murray Schafer: A Creative Life was published by Rowman and Littlefield in March of 2019.
Cristiano Dell'Oste
Cristiano Dell’Oste was born in Udine (Italy) in 1970. After completing his classical studies, he moved to the Conservatory of Parma, where he graduated in Organ with honours, under the direction of Stefano Innocenti. He studied Composition with Andrea Mannucci and graduated from the Faculty of Musicology of The University of Cremona. From 1993 to 1996 he studied harpsichord with Kenneth Gilbert and Choir Conduction with Hagen Groll and orchestra conducting with Michael Gielen at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He also attended, Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s lessons on chamber music. He held conferences for the Italian Institutes of Culture of New Delhi, Singapore and Budapest, on the theatre of Rossini. He started to conduct choirs in the region Friuli Venezia Giulia at the age of 13. From 1994 he is the Choirmaster of “Juvenes Cantores” of Udine Cathedral. The Choir won two national competitions and performed a number of great oratorios, including St. John’s Passion, Matthaus Passion, the B Minor Mass and some Sacred Cantatas by J. S. Bach, Messiah and Dixit Dominus by Händel, the Vespers for the Blessed Virgin by Monteverdi. In the meantime, he worked as Choirmaster in several Udine Theatre season with Boheme by Puccini, Barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini, Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni, Don Carlos by Verdi and Elisir d’Amore by Donizetti. From 2001 he is General Manager and Music Director of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Symphonic Choir, a regional ensemble that cooperates with the Symphonic Orchestra of the New Theatre in Udine. In the last 20 years Dell’Oste had prepared and directed the Choir for many different concerts Requiem and C minor Mass by Mozart The Creation and The Seasons by Haydn (also conducted), IX Symphony and Missa Solemnis by Beethoven, Chichester Psalms by Bernstein, Carmina Burana by Orff, Verdi Requiem etc. and many other repertoires, from jazz to pop and world premieres. In 2014 Riccardo Muti entrusted him with the task of coordinating and preparing the choirs of Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia, the Choir of Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Choir of the Teatro Verdi in Trieste for the Eurovision concert at the Redipuglia Sacrary on the occasion of the 100 years of the Great War. Riccardo Muti conducted the best orchestras of the Berliner, Wiener, Chicago Symphony, Scala di Milano etc. A production with 150 orchestral players and 300 choristers. He also worked with Muti in 2012 and 2016 preparing the Coro del Friuli Venezia Giulia with music by Brahms and Verdi. Besides its remarkable activity in Friuli Venezia Giulia, the choir performed at many prestigious festivals: Festival Monteverdi in Cremona, Società del Quartetto e Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan, Emilia Romagna Festival, Klagenfurt Musikverein, Stadttheater in Klagenfurt, Wien Musikwoche, Ljubljana Festival, Mittelfest, Ravenna Festival, Festival Mi.To, Innsbrucker Festwoche der alte Musik, Les Concerts Parisien, Wien Musikverein. In the autumn of 2022 the Friuli Venezia Giulia Choir performed the Second Symphony by G. Mahler at the Grosse Saal of the Musikverein in Vienna, in a sold out concert. Dell'Oste, in addition to having prepared the choir, also played the organ.
Franz Jochum
Born in Kempten (Germany) and living in Graz (Austria), the conductor and choirmaster Franz Jochum studied violin, choral conducting, orchestral conducting and sound engineering at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, graduating with honours and receiving an appreciation award from the Federal Ministry of Vienna in recognition of his academic achievements. After working as a musical assistant and choral assistant at Graz Opera, Franz Jochum began teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz – initially as an assistant to O. Univ. Prof. Johannes Prinz in the Choral Conducting department. As a lecturer with an artistic habilitation, he now teaches Choral and Orchestral Conducting at the Institute of Church Music, the central artistic subjects of the new Choral Conducting Pedagogy programme and Oratorio for vocal students. The Chor der Kunstuniversität Graz (KUG-Chor) and the Chor der Kirchenmusik are under his artistic direction. Priv. Doz. Mag. art. Franz Jochum has realised major inter-institutional projects and collaborative events with, among others, Oper Graz, Brucknerfest Linz, Musikverein Kroatien, Musikverein für Steiermark, Kunsthaus Graz, Wagner Forum, Montclair State University, the Academy of Music at the University of Zagreb, La Strada, Signale Graz, Voices of Spirit, Steirischer Herbst, Wien Modern. As part of his extensive international concert activities with performances in the USA, France, Hungary, Italy, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, Franz Jochum has conducted the most important oratorio works, extensive a cappella repertoire and a large number of contemporary compositions. His artistic partners have included the Orchestra of the Moravian Philharmonic, the Savaria Symphony Orchestra, Die Wiener and Ornamentum Philharmonicum made up of members of the Vienna Philharmonic, members of Klangforum Wien, Graz Symphony Orchestra, instrumental and vocal ensembles from the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, The Real Group, Ateneo de Manila College Glee Club, Graz Opera Chorus, Wiener Vokalisten made up of members of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and many more. In addition to cultivating the “classical” concert repertoire, the versatile artist is particularly interested in contemporary vocal music, choral improvisation, innovative concert design and interdisciplinary art projects.
- International Choir Competition Zadar Croatia
- Concert office Zadar
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Koncertni ured Zadar - Poljana Šime Budinića 3
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