Programme:
Joaquín Rodrigo:
Two Andalusian Miniatures
Concierto de Aranjuez

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Traditional, arr. Klemen Hvala: Kasapsko oro
Miroslav Tadić, arr. Leon Firšt: Balkan Suite for Guitar and Strings

Ensemble Dissonance has become an indispensable instrumental partner of the Ljubljana Festival at both its festivals, summer and winter. Consisting of established musicians and music professors from Ljubljana drawn from a range of other ensembles, Ensemble Dissonance organises its own chamber series, gives concerts throughout Slovenia and abroad and publishes and releases music. Recent achievements include a nomination for a 2025 Grammy Award for the album Entourer, recorded with the versatile guitarist Mak Grgić, who is now a three-time Grammy nominee and performs regularly all over the world. After studies in Zagreb and Vienna, Grgić was admitted to the elite USC Thornton Artist Diploma programme. He currently teaches at the University of South Carolina. Together, ensemble and soloist have prepared a programme that reflects their versatility. The first part is dedicated to the music of Joaquín Rodrigo, a key figure in the classical guitar repertoire. His early work Two Andalusian Miniatures is followed by the Concierto de Aranjuez, a work imbued with folk melodies and nostalgia that represents the composer’s attempt to portray in music the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, with all its elegance and formal solidity. After the interval we will hear the Macedonian folk tune Kasapsko oro in an arrangement by Ensemble Dissonance founder and cellist Klemen Hvala, while the evening will end with one of the pieces from Entourer: Balkan Suite by the Bosnian guitarist and composer Miroslav Tadić in an arrangement by Leon Firšt, one of Slovenia’s more prominent younger composers.