Vito Žuraj

Vito Žuraj’s work is characterized by powerful and meticulously crafted compositions, tailor-made for the performers and often incorporating scenic elements and spatial sound concepts. Born in Maribor in 1979, his works have quickly gained recognition at major concert halls and festivals, interpreted among others by the New York Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern, and the RIAS Kammerchor.

An opera premiere is the focus of Vito Žuraj's 2022/23 season: Blühen will be staged by Brigitte Fassbaender with the Ensemble Modern under the direction of Michael Wendeberg at Oper Frankfurt in January and February. Händl Klaus provided a libretto for the composer's first full-length music theatre work, which in turn is based on Thomas Mann's story The Black Swan. The premiere of three solo pieces with soprano Johanna Vargas, harpist Marion Ravot, and violinist Giorgos Panagiotidis will follow in May at the Acht Brücken Festival in Cologne.

Vito Žuraj studied composition with Marko Mihevc in Ljubljana and then continued his studies with Lothar Voigtländer in Dresden and Wolfgang Rihm in Karlsruhe. His experience with the technology and aesthetics of electronic sound generation – gained during a master's programme in music technology with Thomas A. Troge and at the ZKM Karlsruhe, and consolidated through co-operations and training with the Experimentalstudio of the SWR and IRCAM – serves him not only for his own compositional work; as a professor of composition and music theory at the Music Academy of the University of Ljubljana since 2015, he initiated the establishment of an electronic music studio, parallel to his lectureship in Karlsruhe from 2007 to 2021.

An avid tennis player, Vito Žuraj uses this experience as inspiration for a now extensive series of works, including 2011’s Changeover for instrumental groups and orchestra, premiered with the Ensemble Modern and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under Johannes Kalitzke, and later performed by SWR Symphonieorchester, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Slovenian Radio Orchestra. Hawk-eye, a concerto for French horn and orchestra, is another example of the series which was performed by the Slovenian Philharmonic and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, both times under Matthias Pintscher, and the Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin with Simone Young. He has long been closely associated with the Ensemble Modern, which has premiered and performed more than 15 of he composer’s works, including Runaround (2014), Übürall (2013), Restrung (2012) and Warm-up (2012). The Ensemble Modern featured a retrospective programme on his compositions at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg in spring 2017. In the same year, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester also gave the world premiere of his composition Stand up!.

Numerous other ensembles and orchestras regularly perform works by Vito Žuraj. The Klangforum Wien took his 2013 composition Fired-up on tour to Milan, Paris, and Vienna. The partially staged composition Insideout was premiered by the Scharoun Ensemble conducted by Matthias Pintscher at the Salzburg Festival in 2013 and reprised by the New York Philharmonic in 2014 and Ensemble intercontemporain in 2016. I-formation, a work for two orchestras and two conductors written for the 30th anniversary of the Kölner Philharmonie, premiered in 2016 with the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Jukka-Pekka Saraste and the Gürzenich Orchester Köln under François Xavier-Roth.

The ensemble piece Tension, performed at the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik with the Klangforum Wien in 2018 under Emilio Pomárico was reprised in Vienna under Peter Rundel. In addition, the Philharmonia Orchestra premiered the English version of his farce Ubuquity for soprano and ensemble in 2018. For the SWR Vokalensemble and the SWR Symphony Orchestra, he wrote the composition Der Verwandler, which is inspired by the alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger, inventor of European porcelain. Hors d'oeuvre for chef-performer and chamber orchestra deals with rituals in cuisine and composition, and was premiered in June 2019 by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Peter Rundel, together with star chef Daniel Gottschlich.

In 2020, Vito Žuraj celebrated great success with Begehren – zersplittert (Désir – éclaté), a concerto for microtonally retuned harp and strings. The world premiere in the Cologne Philharmonie was performed by soloist Marion Ravot and the Munich Chamber Orchestra; the piece was also heard at the Grand Théâtre de Provence. In June 2021, the premiere of his orchestral work Api-danza macabra also took place in Cologne, interpreted by the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under the baton of Cristian Măcelaru. The work has also been brought to life by the Gürzenich Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, and Slovenian Philharmonic. The past season began just as successfully for Vito Žuraj with the world premiere of his cello concerto Unveiled for Jean-Guihen Queyras at the Ljubljana Festival with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Kerem Hasan. The work was subsequently performed in Cologne with the Gürzenich Orchestra under François-Xavier Roth and named a recommended work at the International Rostrum of Composers 2022.

In 2016 Vito Žuraj was awarded the Claudio Abbado Composition Prize by the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker. The prize included a commission for his composition Alavó, which was performed in Berlin, Paris, and Lucerne. Vito Žuraj has also been honoured with the city of Stuttgart’s Composition Award 2012 and the Prešeren Advancement Award, the highest decoration for artists in Slovenia. In 2014 he was a recipient of fellowships from the Villa Massimo in Rome, Academy of Arts in Berlin, and ZKM Karlsruhe. From 2019 to the present, he has been a juror for German artist residences for the Villa Massimo, as well as for Casa Baldi in Olevano, Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venice, Cité internationale des Arts in Paris, and the Academy Opera Today by the Deutsche Bank Stiftung. For 2023 he was appointed a fellow at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation.

Recordings of Vito Žuraj's works have been released on the Neos label, among others, with the most recent being the portrait album Alavò in November 2021. Another portrait CD, Changeover, was already released in 2015 by Wergo in the edition of contemporary music of the German Music Council.

2022/23 season

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