Music Biennale Zagreb: Collettivo_21

At the 2023 MBZ, it will present works by several contemporary composers together with a shared electronic composition in three parts called MicroTape, an intermezzo or a common thread of a kind between several pieces by different composers. The program will also include a two first performances, a first performance of a new version of an existing composition, and a revised version of an already performed composition.

Among them is Frano Đurović, a composer with the largest oeuvre of artistic electronic music in Croatia, who presented his ballet The hero is tired at the MBZ's 30th edition in 2019. Then there is a young Serbian composer Sara Stevanović, who graduated in musicology and languages from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and in composition from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Ravenna. She has attended a number of courses led by great composers such as Tristan Murail and has collaborated with different ensembles across Europe, such as the K!ART Ensemble, ESMUC Orchestra, Divertimento Ensemble etc. Sara Stevanović’s oeuvre immediately catches the eye due to the distinctive titles of her compositions, which are another way for her to indulge in her writing talent and love of reading, in particular the philosophical literature on ruminations on memory. She writes works for orchestra and smaller ensembles in which she stretches the limits of instruments, time, and the sound space of the performance in order to study the phenomena of memory and temporality and to present the experiences of her own memories from the earliest childhood on.

Some performers of the Collettivo_21 are also composers of pieces in its repertoire. For example, Luca Guidarini, composer, musicologist and electronics performer, created the piece Holobiont for ensemble and electronics (which will be performed at the MBZ in a revised version) because of his preoccupations with the relationship between technology, man-musician and performance as a distinct category.

Giulia Lorusso, composer and pianist, who, after graduating from the Conservatory in Milan and also attending IRCAM's Cursus program, will be presented with two pieces. Like Guidarini, Lorusso is interested in the relationship between a performer and their instrument, and the body and sound. So, she tries to incorporate technology in her compositions while keeping in mind the abovementioned perspectives.

The performance, to be held at the Pogon Jedinstvo, will combine pieces for ensemble and electronics, pure electronics and solo instrument, the latter in Giulia Lorusso’s compositions on the electric guitar.