SiBRASS 2020 CONCERT CYCLE
Concert 3
The New Generation
Sunday, 29 November 2020, at 11.00 a.m.
Slovenian Philharmonic, Marjan Kozina Hall
Performing:
Sebastijan Buda, French horn
Urban Stanič, piano
FourCor Horn Quartet
Sebastijan Buda
Blaž Ogrič
Petar Kšenek
Gašper Okorn
Programme:
Tilen Slakan
HORNESS
Sergej Prokofjev
TOCCATA IN D MINOR, OP. 11
Jane Vignery
SONATA FOR HORN AND PIANO, OP. 7
Oliver Messiaen
APPEL INTERSTELLAIRE
Jean Francaix
CANON IN OCTAVE
***
Kerry Turner
THREE MOVEMENTS FOR FOUR HORNS, Op. 48
Eugène Bozza
SUITE FOR FOUR HORNS
Prelude
The hunt
Old Songs
Dance
Choir
Fanfare
Werner Pirchner
BORN FOR HORN
Rok Golob
TSUNAMI WARNING
Traditional (adapted by Joshua Davis)
WALTZING MATILDA
The focus of the third concert of the SiBRASS Cycle will be the French horn; the first part features music for French horn and piano, while the second part will showcase French horn quartet compositions. The performers will be Sebastijan Buda (French horn) – selected to be the Slovene representative at the 2020 Eurovision Young Musicians – Urban Stanič (piano) and the other three musicians (French horn players) comprising the FourCor Quartet: Blaž Ogrič, Petar Kšenek, and Gašper Okorn.
The concert will begin with Horness for French horn and piano (2017), a melodically diverse composition with a heroic character, by Tilen Slakan. Although he pertains to the youngest generation of Slovene composers, Slakan’s opus is diverse and extensive, encompassing numerous fields – even the field of opera; however, it predominantly comprises orchestral and chamber music. More than a century earlier, in 1912 to be precise, Sergei Prokofiev composed his Toccata in D Minor, Op. 11, which he had first intended to be one of the movements of his Piano Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 14, but he later changed his mind and published it as an independent concert composition. Although short, Toccata is very difficult to play, demanding of pianists flawless mastery of the technique as it requires extreme dexterity and includes numerous rhythmic stresses. The third, somewhat newer, piece is Sonata for Horn and Piano, Op. 7, created by the Belgian composer Jane Vignery during the Second World War. For most of her life, Vignery was a professor of harmony in Gent, while before that she studied composition in Paris under Nadia Boulanger and Paul Dukas. As regards Vignery’s musical expression, especially Dukas was very influential – two features of Sonata are its softness and impressionistic acoustics, typical of French composers, while it also includes a distant echo of Villanele, Dukas’s famous composition for French horn and piano. Then follows the fourth composition, Appel Interstellaire (Eng.: “Interstellar Call”) for solo French horn, by Olivier Messiaen. Appel is the virtuoso sixth movement of the twelve-movement Des canyons aux étoiles ... (Eng.: “From the Canyons to the Stars...”), which does not lack in bold, contemporary sound expression. Messiaen was commissioned to write Des canyons aux étoiles... by Alice Tully in 1971 to celebrate the bicentennial of the American Declaration of Independence. While preparing the work he visited Utah, where he was inspired by the birds and the landscape, particularly at Bryce Canyon National Park. The first part of the concert closes with Jean Francaix’s Canon in Octave, a short composition full of spark featuring an emphasised and syncopated rhythm.
The second part of the concert will be dedicated entirely to music for French horn quartet and will open with Kerry Turner’s Three Movements for Four Horns, Op. 48, which he composed in 2003 for the American Horn Quartet. The work was a preparation for the composer’s subsequent more extensive and demanding quartets. One of the most important compositions for French horn quartets – and a typical piece in the repertoire of such ensembles – is Suite for Four Horns by Eugène Bozza. This acoustically exciting composition, which reflects its author’s retrospective gaze, comprises six movements: Prelude, The Hunt, Old Songs, Dance, Choir, and Fanfare. Werner Pirchner was an eccentric Austrian composer and jazz musician whose creations can be placed at the intersection of classical artistic music and musical genres intended for entertainment. His works often include elements of jazz and somewhat more contemporary composition methods, as well as improvisation and inspiration stemming from nature and the environment.The latter is especially true as regards his six-part composition Born for Horn. The concert will close with the compositions Tsunami Warning by Rok Golob from 2005 and the well-known and popular Australian ballad Waltzing Matilda, adapted for French horn quartet by Joshua Davis
Sebastijan Buda, French horn
Sebastijan Buda, French horn player and winner of the Eurovision Young Musicians 2020 competition, finished music school in the town of Sežana under Prof. Simon Perčič. For two years he studied the French horn at the Ljubljana Music and Ballet Conservatory, under Prof. Jože Rošer. He is currently studying at the Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana under Prof. Boštjan Lipovšek. In 2011, 2014, and 2017 he was awarded the gold prize at the Competition of Young Slovene Musicians (TEMSIG). Furthermore, he has received five gold prizes at the Svirél international competition, at which he was a finalist in 2013, 2015, and 2017. In 2014, he won first prize at the 6th “Giovani Musicisti – Cittá di Treviso” International Competition in Treviso (Italy). In 2015, he was awarded first prize at the International Woodwinds & Brass Competition in Varaždin (Croatia). Furthermore, he was a finalist at the 7th international AudiMozart Competition in Rovereto (Italy). In 2015 and 2016, he performed as a soloist with national symphony orchestras at music festivals for young musicians in Armenia and Lithuania. In Slovenia he has performed as a soloist with the following ensembles: the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, the Domžale–Kamnik Symphony Orchestra, and the NOVA Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a regular member of the TrobiNOVA brass quintet, the Symphony Orchestra of the Academy of Music, the Komen Wind Orchestra, and the Slovenian Baroque Orchestra. He has participated in master classes in Slovenia and abroad with French hornists such as the following: Radovan Vlatković, Dale Clevenger, Luca Benucci, Will Sanders, Johannes Hinterholzer, Eric Terwilliger, etc.
Urban Stanič, piano
Urban Stanič, pianist, was the winner of the Slovene selection for the Eurovision Young Musicians 2014 competition; in the finals in Cologne he received second prize. Currently, he is a student at the Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana under Honorary Prof. Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak. Prior to that, he studied under Profs. Lorena Mihelač, Lilijana Žerajić, and Lidija Malahotky Haas. In recent years he has performed in a number of concerts that garnered a great deal of attention: as a soloist with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the Academy of Music Ljubljana, and the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra; furthermore, he has presented a number of solo recitals (Young Virtuosi, Imago Sloveniae, Piano FVG, the International Holland Music Sessions, etc.). He received the Škerjanec Award bestowed by the Ljubljana Music and Ballet Conservatory for academic achievement, and the Prešeren Award of the Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana. For four years in succession he won first prize and was the overall winner at the international competition for pianists in Povoletto (Italy). Furthermore, at the Zlatko Grgošević 2014 international competition in Zagreb he received first prize, was the overall winner, and was bestowed a special award for the performance of a classicist sonata. In 2013, 2016, and 2019 he received three gold prizes, and won three first places and special awards at the Competition of Young Slovene Musicians (TEMSIG) for the best performance of a sonata composed by Domenico Scarlatti, a compulsory composition, and a composition by a Slovene composer. He has improved his knowledge by attending seminars by professors such as Natalia Trull, Andreas Frölich, and Konstantin Bogino. Slovene critics deem Urban Stanič to be “a pianist such as Slovenia has been awaiting a long time.”
The FourCor Horn Quartet
The FourCor Horn Quartet was founded in 2008 upon the initiative of students at the Ljubljana Academy of Music. Its members are Sebastijan Buda, Petar Kšenek, Blaž Ogrič, and Gašper Okorn, who share the desire to play chamber music together. These young musicians are also all well-established individually in Slovenia and internationally. In April 2019, under the mentorship of Prof. Boštjan Lipovšek, the Quartet successfully auditioned to play solo with an orchestra, and in October 2019, together with the Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, it presented Carl Heinrich Hübler’s Concert for Four Horns and Orchestra in the Gallus Hall of the Cankarjev Dom venue.
Zagreb-born French hornist Petar Kšenek is a multitalented musician. In 2017, he was awarded the first prize at the Competition of Young Slovene Musicians (TEMSIG), and won the International Solfege Competition in Slovenia. As soloist, orchestra musician, or chamber musician, he has collaborated with numerous ensembles, inter alia with the Rucner String Quartet, the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, and the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra. Currently, he is on an Erasmus+ student exchange, studying under Professor Mahir Kalmik at the Mainz School of Music (“Hochschule für Musik Mainz”). Tomislav Uhlik, a Croatian composer, wrote the piece Petar’s Magic Horn for Kšenek, which he performed as a child with a tamburica orchestra.
Blaž Ogrič has received the Škerjanec Award bestowed by the Ljubljana Music and Ballet Conservatory for exceptional achievement. He has participated in four music tours with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (Eng.: the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra), for which he plays principal French horn. He has collaborated with composers such as Sir Neville Marriner, Daniel Harding, Christoph Eschenbach, etc. He cooperates on a regular basis with some of the most reputable Slovene orchestras. Since 2015, he has been a student at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana under Prof. Boštjan Lipovšek. In 2015, won first place in the highest category at an international competition in Varaždin, Croatia.
The final member of the FourCor Quartet is Gašper Okorn, also a student of French horn under Prof. Boštjan Lipovšek. Okorn attends seminars held by established musicians such as Raimund Zell, Szabolsc Zempléni, Boštjan Lipovšek, Johannes Hinterholzer, Dale Clevenger, Stefan de Leval Jezierski, Pálma Szilágyi, Nilo Caracristi, etc. In 2016, with a French horn quartet he received a gold plaque at the Competition of Young Slovene Musicians (TEMSIG), while in 2017, as an individual competitor, he won second place and received 97 points and a gold plaque. Aside from his passion for classical music and jazz, he is interested in contemporary music, which he performs as a participant in project-related ensembles of the Ljubljana Academy of Music.