Ariart Wind Quartet & Dissonance String Quartet

Today, the Society of Slovene Composers systematically promotes Slovenian contemporary musical inventiveness by organising one of the largest concerts of premieres in Slovenia, following the example of the Viennese Die Lange Nacht der Musik. Since the 2018/19 season, the Night of Slovene Composers has been artistically designed by the renowned composer and pedagogue Črt Sojar Voglar. This time, fourteen artists will present their new sound creations, focusing on the points of convergence and divergence of the sound colours of wind and string instruments. A special feature of the event is the intense frequency of juxtaposition of young and emerging compositional talents with the mature poetics of Slovenian composers. This is why the Night of Slovene Composers presents a comprehensive picture of Slovenian musical creativity. It also encourages the development of the audience’s receptive condition, as well as providing an opportunity for established and developing artworks to be evaluated under a critical lens.

The Ariart Wind Quartet and the Dissonance String Quartet will alternate on stage in performing new works, while individual musicians will also perform in duos, inspired by the composers. The concert will open with a new work by Blaženka Arnič Lemež, which commits itself to the intimate lyrical expression of a predominantly romantic idiom. Her chamber work is entitled Concertino, which suggests an affinity for the more traditional expression of the string quartet, a hard nut to crack for composers of all kinds. It is impossible to hide the flaws in the transparent four-voice string phrase. New works have also been written for this form of ensemble by the organist and composer Diana Novak, the incisive Italian accordionist Corrado Rojac, and Uroš Rojko, whose creativity leaves room for improvisation.

The composer, pedagogue and clarinettist David Beovič wrote Banzai!, a piece with an almost programmatic title or Japanese battle cry, for the wind quartet. The wind ensemble is also favoured by the specialist for choirs Pavel Dolenc, the stylistically versatile Žiga Stanič, a trumpeter and composition student in Andrej Misson’s class, Tilen Slakan, a representative of the Slovenian compositional canon, the award-winning Ljubo Rančigaj, and Brina Zupančič, a well-established composer in the melting pot of chamber music. Meanwhile, more established composers have reached beyond the quartet. Nenad Firšt with the Labyrinth for two violins, Jani Golob with the Duo for two violins and Vladimir Hrovat with the Synergy for flute and bassoon. One of Slovenia’s more internationally active young creative forces, Petra Strahovnik – an avant-garde artist – will this time be presenting her work on home soil.