Contact
Isabella Vasilottaiv@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-240
Elke Moltrechtem@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-227
Estefanía Montes Menéndezes@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-228
General Management
Vito Žuraj's first full-length opera Blühen was premiered in Frankfurt in January 2023 and received enthusiastic reviews. Before the world premiere, we spoke to the composer about his collaboration with librettist Händl Klaus, director Brigitte Fassbaender and the Ensemble Modern, which played under Michael Wendeberg.
On Vito Žuraj's new CD Alavò, three large orchestras and renowned soloists interpret three works from the past five years.
With his work Api-danza macabra, Vito Žuraj addresses the explosive topic of bee mortality. The WDR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Cristian Măcelaru, premiered the commissioned composition this summer.
Vito Žuraj s.p., Three solo works for Violin, Soprano and Harp
Vito Žuraj, composition
Giorgos Panagiotidis, violone
Johanna Vargas, soprano
Marion Ravot, harp
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
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions, or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.
“Schub’rdy G’rdy is a neologism of Schubert and Hurdy Gurdy […] The Schubertian themes are taken from the “Leiermann” song from the Winterreise cycle, as well as the composer’s “Erlkönig” and “Ave Maria”. […] The whole piece would have seemed somewhat superficial, like a succession of Schubert quotations simply strung together, were it not for the humorous tone, which brought the piece to life, and the musicians, especially the absolutely terrific soprano Rinnat Moriah, who performed the piece almost as if it were staged.”
klassik-begeistert.de, Julian Bäder, 12/04/2017
“Vito Zuraj is not very well known in France, which is a great shame. […] In Ubuquité […] the narrator invites us on a round-the-world trip, in which lists, word-play and more or less offensive jokes are strung together. The style is polymorphous, and borrows from jazz, flirts with Ligeti’s 'Myteries of the Macabre' and explicitly refers to Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s use of quotation (himself cited in both the music and text).”
forumopera.com, Par Alexandre Jamar, 24/01/2017
“Whilst the musical duties were shared equally, the ensembles took it in turns to begin, as per tennis service. The off-stage orchestra began in the heavens, with the angelic sound of harp and cymbals. On stage, viscous string glissandi were shot around the room as if by exhausted players, before the brass players fired back fanfares in return. […] This visual and aural dialogue was great fun for the audience. Thierry Mechler’s effervescent and undulating organ part was an intermediary between the on- and off-stage orchestras, creating a playing field for a match in which Vito Žuraj subtly mixed energy and unfamiliar timbres.”
KÖLNISCHE RUNDSCHAU, Olaf Weiden, 16/09/2016, on “i-Formation” for two orchestras, premiered on 14/09/2016 at the Kölner Philharmonie
“His Tango for Flute and Orchestra is as virtuosic as it is energetic, playing with the popular dance rhythm and throwing the motifs across the orchestra like juggling balls.”
THÜRINGER ALLGEMEINE, Ursula Mielke, 29/10/2016
“The playful and competitive panache of the new work […] was immediately apparent. […] Both the aural quality of the piece and the means of its production were brought to the fore, with its virtuosic construction – generated from the alternately cooperative and antagonistic relationship between the ensembles – always remaining in the service of an overarching sound. This was, so to speak, the mission statement of the piece. There were quarter-tone constellations and urgent and boundary-pushing glissandi; gigantic tutti thunderstorms and expansive soundscapes which huff and puff ; and, in the middle of it all, Thierry Mechler, the Philharmonie’s organist, was even able to perform a rhythmically complex organ part. Again and again, both orchestras had to realise highly precise effects.”
KÖLNER STADTANZEIGER, Markus Schwering, 16/09/2016, about “i-Formation” for two orchestras
“This colourful and slightly excited music casts a spell over the audience very quickly. Algorithms play a role in this music as well as musical intuition. The result, still, is not a stiff and stereotypical drawing board music – at the contrary.”
DAS ORCHESTER, Heike Eckhoff, February 2016 about Hawk-eye on the portrait CD “Changeover”
“The recent horn concerto 'Hawk-eye' by Slovenian composer Vito Žuraj invites us to 'imagine a hawk flying over a picturesque valley and having the ability to zoom in on any interesting detail below', a neat conceit that gave soloist Saar Berger carte blanche to whirl, dive and generally flit about, musically speaking.”
THE GUARDIAN, Kate Molesson, 02/03/2015
“The hit of the night, the 'Hawk-eye' Horn Concerto by Slovenian Vito Žuraj, is an amazing piece which received a staggeringly-characterised performance by soloist Saar Berger, giving a real bird's-eye view of the world, with the rushing wind in your face and the swoop from a great height onto a luckless prey, with all the rude gulping and devouring sounds, and the inevitable hilarious effects on the digestive system.”
HERALD SCOTLAND, Michael Tumelty, 01/03/2015
“During the concert 'Ensemble Modern remixed!' […] one would hear the works again in a final Live-Remix, for instance the filigree of trickling sounds and the hocket of a microtonal singing bowl-melody in Vito Žuraj’s work “Restrung”s. The piece had pleased the public with the sensuality of its sounds and its contrasts […].”
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG, Elisabeth Risch, 24/01/2013
Unveiled (2021)
Api-danza macabra (2021)
Désir-éclaté (2020), starts at 00:12:00
Hors d'oeuvre (2018/19)
Vito Žuraj - Aftertouch (for ensemble) (2015)
Ubuquité - L'art est mort (Ensemble intercontemporain, Hélène Fauchère, Matthias Pintscher)
SWR Vocal Ensemble, SWR Symphony Orchestra, Brad Lubman, Kölner Philharmonie, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, François-Xavier RothMoriah, Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, Stanley DoddsNeos 12102, 2021
Saar Berger, Ensemble Modern, hr-Sinfonieorchester,Slovenian PhilharmonicMatthias Pintscher, Johannes KalitzkeWergo, B013578D1C, 2015A Coproduction of the Deutscher Musikrat and Slovenian Philharmonic
Travelling PiecesRecorded piece: Warm-upEMCD-026/27, Ensemble Modern, 2014
Ensemble ExperimentalRecorded piece: ZgübleniExperimentalStudio des SWRNeos, B00OMEJAS8, 2014
Luka Juhart, accordionRecorded piece: SilhouetteNeos, B00NLQVG30, 2014
Klangforum WienJean-Michaël LavoieSan Fedele Musica, 2014
Johanna Vargas, Gašper LivkCappricio 2021
Ensemble Modern, Ingo MetzmacherEnsemble Modern Medien 2020
Trio CatchBastille musique 2019