BIOGRAPHY
“The premiere of the evening doesn’t need to hide either and deserves to be included as a repertoire in a canon of the immediate present that has yet to be written: Vito Žuraj’s “Automatones” – contemporary orchestral music – is entertaining and yet incredibly complex, well constructed and irritating in the best sense of the word at its finest. The Slovenian composer is well on his way to making a name for himself.”
– Münchner Merkur, 16.10.2023
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.
Following the successful world premiere of his first full-length opera Blühen after a libretto by Händl Klaus, which could be seen at Oper Frankfurt last season stage directed by Brigitte Fassbaender with the Ensemble Modern under the direction of Michael Wendeberg that was named World Premiere of the Year 2023 by Opernwelt magazine, the 2023/24 season will focus on three orchestral works: Le fou triste for trumpet and string orchestra – with a paraphrase of the trumpet intro from Viktor Ullmann’s chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis composed in Theresienstadt – was premiered in October with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and Jeroen Berwaerts; as co-commissioners, Ensemble Resonanz and the Aichi Chamber Orchestra will perform the work in March 2024 at the Elbphilharmonie and the Aichi Prefectual Art Theater, respectively, as country premieres. The premiere of Automatones by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle followed also in October 2023 as part of the musica viva series; the Automatones, man-made creatures from Greek mythology, stand as archetypes for artificial intelligence. A new work for the Berliner Philharmoniker under François-Xavier Roth will be heard in May: The Tower of the Winds refers to the octagonal building on the Roman Agora in Athens with its representation of the Greek wind gods. Other season highlights in autumn 2023 included a concert by the Ensemble Modern at the Alte Oper as part of the Frankfurt Book Fair, of which Slovenia was the current Guest of Honour, as well as a performance of Hors d’oeuvre for chef-performer and chamber orchestra at the Romaeuropa Festival at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome with Ensemble Modern. The work deals with rituals in cuisine and composition and was launched in 2019 by the WDR Sinfonieorchester under Peter Rundel together with star chef Daniel Gottschlich.
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 and estabilshed 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 and was performed by the Slovenian Philharmonic and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, both times under Matthias Pintscher, and the Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin with Simone Young. Vito Žuraj has long been closely associated with the Ensemble Modern, which has premiered and performed more than 15 of his 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.
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.
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. In 2021, Jean-Guihen Queyras premiered the cello concerto Unveiled for 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 held a scholarship at the Villa Massimo in Rome, the Akademie der Künste in Berlin as well as the ZKM Karlsruhe and in 2020/21 at the International Artists’ House Villa Concordia in Bamberg. He is currently a jury member of the Academy Music Theatre Today of the Deutsche Bank Foundation and a Fellow of 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.
2023/24 season
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by Karsten Witt Musik Management.
| 2023 world premiere of AUTOMATONES with the BRSO conducted by Sir Simon Rattle |
| 2023 world premiere of the opera BLÜHEN at Oper Frankfurt, Germany |
| 2023 Fellow at Civitella Ranieri, Italy |
| 2020/2021 Fellow at Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia Bamberg, Germany |
| 2017 Composer’s portrait with Ensemble Modern at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Germany |
| 2016 Claudio Abbado Composition Prize by the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, Germany |
| from 2016 Represented by Karsten Witt Musik Management, Germany |
| from 2016 Professor for composition and music theory at the Academy of Music, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia |
| 2014 Fellow at the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo, Italy |
| 2012 1st Prize at the 57th Stuttgart Composition Prize, Germany |
| 2009-2010 Fellow at the International Ensemble Modern Academy, Frankfurt, Germany |
| 2008-2020 Lectureship at the University of Music Karlsruhe, Germany |
| 1979 Born in Maribor, Slovenia |
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| 2020/2021 Fellow at Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia Bamberg, Germany |
| 2017 Composer’s portrait with Ensemble Modern at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Germany |
| 2016 Claudio Abbado Composition Prize by the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, Germany |
| from 2016 Represented by Karsten Witt Musik Management, Germany |
| from 2016 Professor for composition and music theory at the Academy of Music, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia |
| 2014 Fellow at the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo, Italy |
| 2012 1st Prize at the 57th Stuttgart Composition Prize, Germany |
| 2009-2010 Fellow at the International Ensemble Modern Academy, Frankfurt, Germany |
| 2008-2020 Lectureship at the University of Music Karlsruhe, Germany |
| 1979 Born in Maribor, Slovenia |
Vito Žuraj kicked off the 2020/21 season to great acclaim with Begehren – zersplittert, a concerto for harp and strings for which the twelve highest strings of the concert harp are retuned microtonally. Its world premiere at the Kölner Philharmonie was performed by soloist Marion Ravot and the Münchener Kammerorchester. The work was subsequently heard under the title Désir – éclaté at the Festival Nouveaux horizons in Aix-en-Provence, where it was conducted by the composer himself.
Vito Žuraj studied composition with Marko Mihevc in Ljubljana, before heading to Germany for further studies with Lothar Voigtländer in Dresden and Wolfgang Rihm in Karlsruhe. His experience with the technology and aesthetics of electronic sound generation – acquired through a master’s programme in music technology with Thomas A. Troge at the Karlsruhe University of Music, and consolidated through collaborations with the SWR Experimental Studio in Freiburg, Germany, and IRCAM in Paris – has borne fruit in more than just his own compositions: as a professor of composition and music theory at the Music Academy of the University of Ljubljana since 2015, he was the driving force behind establishing the Academy’s electronic music studio. During that time, he also lectured in instrumentation at the University of Music in Karlsruhe.
An avid tennis player, Vito Žuraj took inspiration from the sport in penning an extensive series of tennis-themed works, including 2011’s Changeover for instrumental groups and orchestra, premièred by the Ensemble Modern and the hr-symphony orchestra under Johannes Kalitzke. He has long been closely associated with the Ensemble Modern, which has since premièred several of his works, including The Voice of Battaros (2020), Runaround (2014), Übürall (2013), Restrung (2012), Warm-up (2012) and Top Spin (2011). The Ensemble Modern also featured a retrospective programme of his work in 2017 – one of two concerts showcasing his work at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg in spring 2017. That spring, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester also gave the première of his composition Stand up!
Numerous other ensembles and orchestras regularly perform works by Vito Žuraj. Vito Žuraj’s first opera, “Orlando. The Castle”, was premiered 2013 in the Theater Bielefeld, in cooperation with “Academy Opera Today”, an initiative by the Deutsche Bank Foundation. The Klangforum Wien took his 2013 composition Fired-up on tour to Milan, Paris and Vienna. The semi-staged composition Insideout was premièred by the Scharoun Ensemble under Matthias Pintscher at the Salzburg Festival in 2013, and reprised by the New York Philharmonic in 2014 and the Ensemble Intercontemporain in 2016. i-Formation, a work for two orchestras, commissioned by KölnMusik and written for the 30th anniversary of the Cologne Philharmonic Hall, was premièred in September 2016 by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Cologne’s Gürzenich-Orchester under François Xavier-Roth. Last season’s premières included Drive for percussion trio and instrumental groups, which Žuraj wrote while composer in residence at the Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the ensemble composition Tension, which was performed at the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik by the Klangforum Wien under Emilio Pomárico, and reprised in Vienna under Peter Rundel. In addition, the Philharmonia Orchestra premiered the English version of his farce Ubuquity for soprano and ensemble in April 2018.
The 2018/19 season saw him push new boundaries with a series of conceptual works, including Der Verwandler, composed for the SWR Vocal Ensemble and SWR Symphony Orchestra, and inspired by the alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger, who invented European porcelain. The work includes porcelain bells and wind chimes that were especially crafted for the performance in collaboration with the porcelain factory in Meissen. His composition Hors d’oeuvre takes a novel approach to the concerto genre, being scored for solo chef and chamber orchestra. It was premièred by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Peter Rundel, with star chef Daniel Gottschlich as soloist.
In spring 2016, Vito Žuraj was awarded the Claudio Abbado Composition Prize by the Berlin Philharmonic’s Orchestra Academy. The prize included a commission for Alavó, which was performed in Berlin, Paris and Lucerne. Vito Žuraj has also been honoured with the city of Stuttgart’s composition award 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, the Academy of Arts in Berlin and the ZKM Karlsruhe. At the start of 2019 he was appointed to a three-year term on the committee granting artists’ scholarships for the German residency programmes at the Villa Massimo, the Casa Baldi in Olevano, the Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venice and the Cité des Arts in Paris. In 2020/2021 Vito Žuraj is fellow at the International House of Artists Villa Concordia in Bamberg, Germany.
Recordings of Vito Žuraj’s works have been released under Capriccio and Neos label, among others, and a CD showcasing his work was also released by Wergo as part of the German Music Council ‘s contemporary music edition.
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by Karsten Witt Musik Management.