CANTABILE SYMPHONIE ORCHESTRA

Ivan Skrt, piano

Marjan Grdadolnik, conductor

Presented in collaboration with the Kogoj Days Festival

Since its debut in the spring of 2011, the Cantabile Symphony Orchestra has captivated audiences both at home and abroad. Founded out of a genuine devotion to music by its original members and Professor Marjan Grdadolnik – who continues to serve as conductor and artistic director – the orchestra has developed a distinctive artistic identity. Comprising sixty outstanding musicians –professors, students of music academies, and promising young talents – the ensemble brings together those for whom music is both a calling and a lifelong vocation. Over more than thirteen concert seasons, Cantabile has established itself as a significant presence within both the Slovenian and international musical landscape, providing a platform for bold programming and new ambitious artistic projects.

Joining the orchestra as soloist is pianist Ivan Skrt from Kanal ob Soči. He graduated from the renowned P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and continued his studies in Paris, where he gave a recital in the legendary Salle Gaveau – one of the most famous concert halls in the world, highly esteemed as a symbol of artistic excellence and pianism of the highest level. He has performed several times at Cankarjev dom, where critics have described him as an enigmatic pianist of a special kind. He has also appeared at the Ljubljana Festival, with the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, and with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a regular guest at the Kogoj Days Festival, and has established himself internationally with acclaimed recitals in South America.

“Absolute technique, musical intuition and interpretative freedom, combined with a refined sense of taste, merge into a whole that the listener experiences with the feeling that they are not merely witnessing something good or different, but something that is being created in that very moment – unique, untransferable, and unrepeatable, as in a fine jazz improvisation. Such pleasure requires an open-minded audience, flexible enough to embrace a different discourse. And so it was – the entire parterre listened to him as if in church.”

(Rodolfo Ponce de León, Búsqueda, Uruguay – Teatro Solis, 2015)

PROGRAMME

A. Modic: new composition

S. Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor

S. Osterc: Religioso