Vitor Fernandes, clarinet

Jelena Boljubaš, piano

Programme:

E. Chausson: Andante and Allegro

B. Mantovani: Bug

C. Debussy: First Rhapsody

L. Bassi: Fantasie on G. Verdi’s Rigoletto

***

Sara Čano, cello

Jelena Boljubaš, piano

Programme:

G. Cassadó: Intermezzo – Danza Finale from Suite for Cello solo

F. Chopin-A. Glazunov: Etude No 6, Op. 25

R. Ščedrin: Quadrille from the opera Not love alone

F. Chopin: Polonaise Brilliante in C Major, Op.3

At the age of just 22, Vitor Fernandes of Portugal is already known as one of the finest clarinettists of the younger generation. In April 2017 he won the prestigious International Clarinet Competition in Ghent (Belgium). He has performed as a soloist in several European countries and also in the United States of America. Although he does not come from a musical family, he started playing in the wind orchestra of his hometown at the age of six. After two months of playing the trumpet, he switched to the clarinet and immediately fell in love with the instrument. He is a graduate of the Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espectáculo (ESMAE) in Porto, where he studied with Nuno Pinto. He has attended masterclasses with António Saiote, Florent Héau and Michel Arrignon. He is currently pursuing postgraduate studies at the Haute École De Musique (HEM) in Geneva with Romain Guyot, who says of him that his great sensitivity, musical depth, elegance and refinement, combined with perfect control of sound, breathing and technique are without comparison.

Seventeen-year-old Sara Čano of Ljubljana began learning the cello at the age of six with her mother Aleksandra Čano Muharemović and is currently completing her studies at the Ljubljana Conservatory of Music and Ballet in the class of Miloš Mlejnik. She has attended masterclasses with Torleif Thedéen, at the Belgrade Cello Fest with Denis Shapovalov and Dragan Djordjević, at the Mozarteum International Summer Academy in Salzburg with Clemens Hagen, and at the 17th Trenta International Music Forum with Robert Nagy (followed by a performance at Vienna’s famous Musikverein). She has won top prizes at numerous international competitions: the International J. J. F. Dotzauer Competition for Young Cellists in Dresden (Germany), the Antonio Janigro Cello Festival in Poreč (Croatia), the Heran Violoncello Competition in Ústí nad Orlicí (the Czech Republic), the David Popper International Cello Competition in Várpalota (Hungary) and the Liezen International Cello Competition in Liezen (Austria). Among her recent successes, she was named a Laureate of the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians, having competed against 45 other invited cellists from around 15 countries, and won first prize with a perfect score of 100 points at the 44th national TEMSIG (Young Musicians of Slovenia) competition. She has also done well in competitions as half of a duo with violinist Nikola Pajanović. Together they have won the Paolo Spincich Cup (at the 9th Ars Nova International Music Competition in Trieste), an absolute first prize at the 1st International Tartini Competition in Piran and a third prize at the Ohrid Pearls International Competition of Young Musicians in Ohrid (Macedonia).

Pianist Jelena Boljubaš graduated from the state Conservatory in Kiev in 1995 and then took up a position with the National Opera in the same city. She has been working in Slovenia since 1997, at first as a répétiteur at the Slovene National Opera in Maribor and, since 1999, at the Slovene National Opera in Ljubljana. Since 2016 she has been employed as a répétiteur at the Ljubljana Conservatory of Music and Ballet. She has helped prepare numerous opera projects. She has given concerts with, among others, the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, Consortium Musicum, the Tone Tomšič Academic Choir, and with singers such as Ana Pusar Jerič, Juan Vasle, Marko Kobal, Slavko Savinšek and Marcos Fink, among others. She is a regular performer of the lieder repertoire and in 2005 recorded an album of Slovene lieder with the baritone Marko Kobal.