Tamara Gombač, cello and Maja Gombač, piano

Programme:

L. van Beethoven: Cello Sonata in G minor No 2, Op. 5

R. Schumann: Fantasiestücke, op. 73

E. von Dohnányi: Ruralia Hungarica, op. 32d

***

Luka Mitev, bassoon

Ana Semič Bursać, piano

Programme:

J. S. Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007

M. Bitsch: Concertino

C. Saint-Saëns: Sonata for Bassoon and Piano in G major, op. 168

Tamara Gombač (1989) began studying cello with Lucija Kotar and continued with Igor Mitrović at the Secondary School of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana. She was then invited by Miloš Mlejnik to enrol at the Ljubljana Academy of Music as an outstanding talent. In 2010 she spent a semester as an Erasmus exchange student at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, where she studied with Leonid Gorokhov and then continued her undergraduate studies at the same university. Having completed her bachelor’s degree in 2012, she completed postgraduate studies in 2014. In 2016 she also graduated with distinction from the Ljubljana Academy of music and enrolled in the master’s programme at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz for the 2016/17 academic year. She has attended masterclasses with musicians such as Andrej Petrač, Valter Dešpalj, David Grigorian, Daniel Grosgurin, Rivka Golani, Alexander Rudin, Anner Bylsma, Arto Noras, Wolfgang Boettcher, Philippe Muller and Wen-Sinn Yang, among others. She has worked with numerous orchestras (Il Gioco del suono, ProArtibus, Treppenhaus Hannover, the orchestras of the Ljubljana Opera and Maribor Opera, the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra), and in 2014 was a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (GMJO), with which she appeared at prestigious European festivals. During the course of her studies, she has played in various chamber groups and is currently a member of the Hannover Cello Consort, a cello octet led by Leonid Gorokhov. A second prize at the International Alpe-Adria Competition in Gorizia brought her the opportunity to perform in important venues such as the Great Hall of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.

Maja Gombač (1991) began her musical career in Ljubljana under the tutelage of Aleksandra Naumovski and continued her training with Saša Potisk. Having graduated from the Ljubljana Academy of Music in the class of Hinko Haas and completed an Erasmus exchange at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Imre Rohmann, she is currently a second-year master’s degree student at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz. As a soloist she has attended masterclasses with teachers such as Konstantin Bogino, Igor Lazko, Alexsei Kornienko, Ruben Dalibaltayan, Oliver Kern, Aleksandar Serdar, Klaus Hellwig, Uta Weyand and Grigory Gruzman; she has also honed her chamber music skills with the Trio di Parma, Anna Chumachenko, Wendy Champney, Werner Bärtschi, Klaus Maetzl, Jörg Widmann, Wen-Sinn Yang and Valeriy Sokolov. She is a winner of the Student Prešeren Prize of the Ljubljana Academy of Music and has won the highest honours at the national competition and at international competitions in Italy, Serbia, Croatia and Spain. She has performed as a soloist with the Slovene Philharmonic String Chamber Orchestra, the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, the Ljubljana Opera Orchestra, the Maribor Opera Symphony Orchestra and the Luxembourg Chamber Orchestra. To date, she has given concerts in Slovenia and in Britain, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Franca, Luxembourg and Croatia.

Postojna-born bassoonist Luka Mitev (1997) began studying bassoon with his father Zoran Mitev and continued his training at the Ljubljana Conservatory of Music and Ballet, where in 2014 he was awarded the Škerjanc Prize. In the 2017/18 academic year, he will be a second-year student at the Mozarteum in Salzburg under Marco Postinghel. He has taken part in several national competitions, with excellent results including first prizes and a perfect score of 100 points. He reached the finals of auditions for the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) in the 2012/13 season and was admitted to the EUYO summer school in the 2013/14 concert season. In the 2017 summer season, he took part in the orchestra’s summer tour. In the summer of 2015, he played with the European Music Campus Orchestra, based in Austria, which worked with the EUYO. For the 2016 season, he auditioned, as a musician on the reserve list, for the renowned Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. He is one of the five finalists of the “We stand behind them” project who have played with the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed as a soloist with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Rudolfinum in Prague. He has attended numerous seminars with renowned teachers such as Michael Tavernaro, Bence Boganyi, Robert Gillinger, Gustavo Núñez, Giorgio Mandolesi, Emmanuel Pahud, Stefano Canuti, Andrea Zucco and Marco Postinghel.