Organisers

Dušan Bavdek. born in 1971, is an Associate Professor of composition and music theory as well as a Vice Dean for quality and international affairs at the Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana.

His works have been performed as a part of subscription cycles of Slovenian orchestras and choirs and at concerts in Europe, America, Asia in Australia. He has led many compositional workshops, lectured at various academies of music in Europe and USA and acted as a jury member of competitions in composition in different European countries.

Beside his artistic work, he was Head of Department of Composition and Music Theory at the Ljubljana Academy of Music, President of the National Matura Commission for Music and is still active as the Artistic Leader of International Activities of the Society of Slovene Composers.

Jana Andreevska, born in 1967, is a contemporary composer, professor and artistic director in the world of contemporary classical music. She is the first female Macedonian composer and one of the most internationally performed Macedonian composers. She has earned both her BA and MA degrees in Composition at the Faculty of Music in Skopje, where she has been also teaching since 1995. Her education as a composer also includes numerous workshops Europe wide, with renowned composers such as Louis Andriessesn, Ton de Leeuw, Michael Nyman, Francois Bernard-Mache, Eric Gaudibert, John Woolrich, Nigel Osborne, Glenn Hackbarth etc.

She has received research fellowships and given lectures at the Arizona State University in Tempe (USA), Academy of Music in Ljubljana (Slovenia), Royal Academy of Music in London (UK), Royal Conservatories in Liege and Mons (Belgium), Yasar University in Izmir (Turkey), University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (Austria), as well as series of extra-curricular lectures in her own country.

Her pieces have been performed and recorded by herself and major soloists and ensembles in Macedonia as well as throughout Europe.

Her works have been published on CDs by SOKOM, Dresdner Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik, Peer Music, Zefir Records.

Jana Andreevska is an active member of many professional organizations such as the Macedonian Composers Association (SOKOM), a delegate of SOKOM in the European Composers Forum (ECF) and ECSA (European Composer and Songwriter Alliance) and Chairwoman of the Artistic Committee of the ECCO (European Contemporary Composers Orchestra) from 2014-2018. Since 2008 she has been directing the festival “Days of Macedonian Music”.

Irina Hasnas, born in 1954, studied composition at the Ciprian Porumbescu Music Conservatory in Bucharest with teachers such as Aurel Stroe, Stefan Niculescu, Theodor Grigoriu. She completed her PhD in musicology at the Music Academy of Cluj.

She worked as an editor  at the Romanian Broadcasting Music Publishing House. Since 1978, she is a member of the Union of Composers and Musicologists in Romania and she has been collaborating with various magazines publishing articles of musical criticism.

Between 2000 -2014, she was a member of the World Music Group of the European Union of Radio and Television, and in 2009, she was elected to the Coordination Office of that group.

Since 2007, she is an associate professor at Spiru Haret University,  in the music program within the Faculty of Socio-Human Sciences. She is also producing shows at Radio Clasic in Colors, in Romania.

Olli Virtaperko, born in 1973, has enjoyed a multi-faced career. He studied composition, the Baroque cello and early music performance practice at the University of Edinburgh, and composition and music theory at Sibelius Academy.

On the other hand, he has also been also a vocalist in one of Finland’s most popular rock groups, Ultra Bra, as well as the leader and cellist in his own Ensemble Ambrosius, which performs Frank Zappa and other
contemporary music with Baroque instruments.

Virtaperko’s musical background feeds directly into his work as a composer, which includes heavy-duty solo concertos and orchestral &
chamber works along with a number of works for Baroque and Renaissance period instruments.

Since 2005, he is a freelance music journalist in Yle Broadcasting Company. He is also the vice chairman of the Society of Finnish Composers since 2014, in addition to being Chairman of the editorial board of Finnish Music Quarterly FMQ.