Marta Močnik Pirc, soprano
Dejan Maksimilijan Vrbančič, tenor
Jože Vidic, baritone
Lana Trotovšek, violin
Gregor Klančič, organ
Chamber Choir AVE
Alenka Podpečan, choir master
Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra (students and professors)
Uroš Lajovic, conductor

Programme:
U. Krek: Inventiones ferales
U. Lajovic: Chapter from Andrej Schuster Drabosnik’s Passion*
* premiere performance

Conductor Uroš Lajovic (b. 1944) has given more than 1,300 performances around the world with more than 70 orchestras over the course of his career and has also been a long-serving professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Less well known is his activity as a composer. In 1967, when studying composition with Matija Bravničar at the Ljubljana Academy of Music, he won a student Prešeren Prize for his composition Chapter from Andrej Schuster Drabosnik’s Passion. Extracts from the work have been performed before now, but on this occasion it will be performed in its entirety for the first time, in a recently revised version. The work is based on a versified text recounting Christ’s Passion by the poet and dramatist Andrej Schuster Drabosnik (1768–1825) and includes an intimate conversation between the Virgin Mary and her Son on Holy Wednesday. In formal terms it takes as its basis the Passions of the Baroque period, with recitatives, arias, choruses, ensembles and an Evangelist as narrator. Lajovic took Johann Sebastian Bach as his compositional model, while aesthetically he was greatly influenced by Dmitri Shostakovich. The vocal part of the composition shows the influence of Anton Heiller and Hugo Distler. The oratorio will be interpreted by leading Slovene soloists – soprano Marta Močnik Pirc, tenor Dejan Maksimilijan Vrbančič and baritone Jože Vidic. The organ will be played by Gregor Klančič. The Chamber Choir AVE and the Ljubljana Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, on this occasion comprising both students and professors, will be conducted by the composer. Preceding the oratorio is a celebrated work for violin and strings, Inventiones ferales, illustrating the introverted expressionist style adopted by Uroš Krek (1922–2008) in the early 1960s and his deep connection to folk tradition. The solo part will be played by the internationally acclaimed violinist Lana Trotovšek.