Festival Slowind
Prešernov trg 1, SI-1000 Ljubljana
Phone386 (0) 41 371 370
Organised byGlasbeno društvo Slowind
Matej Šarc, President
Frequencyannual
Slowind Festival
From Culture.si
Revision as of 20:01, 16 May 2012 by Maia Golobič (talk | contribs)
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Background
The Slowind Quintet is made up of soloists of the Slovene Philharmonic: flautist Aleš Kacjan, oboist Matej Šarc, clarinettist Jurij Jenko, bassoonist Paolo Calligaris and hornist Metod Tomac. The ensemble was initially established as a trio in 1987 by Aleš Kacjan, Jurij Jenko and Zoran Mitev, who came together because of the National Musicians Competition of Yugoslavia, where they won first prize. The trio performed at festivals and events in Slovenia and abroad, among others at the Paris fair Musicora and the International Summer Festival in Dubrovnik. The ensemble expanded into a wind quintet in 1994 with the intention of performing 20th-century and rare or seldom –performed contemporary music on Slovene stages. The annual Slowind festival was organised with the intention of comissioning new compositions from Slovene and international composers for the wind quintet. For their work to date, Slowind have received the Župančič Prize in 1999 and the Prešeren Prize in 2003.
International participation
The Slowind quintet plays an important role in introducing Slovene musical heritage and culture to international audiences by performing Slovene compositions at different festivals at home and abroad. Slowind participated in festivals including the Roaring Hoofs Festival in Mongolia, Ars Musica in Brussels, Biennale in Bern and Klangspuren in Schwaz. It also toured the United States (New York, Swarthmore, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Chicago) and participated at the New Music Series event in Canada (Toronto) as well as at concerts in Berlin, Munich, Rome, Florence and in Vienna. The festival also brings to Ljubljana the performances of distinguished international chamber ensembles including Accroche Note and Ensemble Aleph.
The quintet has also taken part in the events surrounding the European Capital of Culture Maribor 2012 with the concert Spectre of Sounds featuring works by E. Carter and C. Nielsen among others.
Repertoire
The festival's contemporary repertoire is in part tailored to the quintet with new works written for the ensemble in its present form. The wind quintet brings to the stage of the Slovene Philharmonic seldom performed compositions from the classical music repertoire as well as 20th-century and comissioned new works. A number of contemporary Slovene and foreign composers have thus dedicated works to the Slowind Quintet including Larisa Vrhunc, Vinko Globokar, Lojze Lebič, Nina Šenk, Neville Hall, Volker Staub, Ivo Nilsson and Martin Smolka. The quintet presents this repertoire at the Slowind festival as well as at other festivals at home and abroad. The Slowind Festival gives the audience an opportunity to hear seldom-performed works from chamber literature in which wind instruments have a leading role. Another unique element of the festival are performances of compositions featuring winds with other instruments such as the accordeon, the Latvian kokle and percussion.
