Thursday, September 29
St. Nicholas Church, 8.00 p.m.
Croatian Baroque Ensemble
Jelena Štefanić, soprano
Laura Vadjon, solo violin
Stjepan Nodilo, baroque oboe, recorder, artistic leadership
Programme:
Händel Sublime
Concerto grosso op.6, no.1 in G major, HWV319
A tempo giusto
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro
Allegro
Concerto for oboe and strings in G minor, HWV287
Grave
Allegro
Sarabande
Allegro
Cantata Il delirio amoroso, HWV 99
Introduzione
Rec: Da quel giorno fatale
Arija: Un pensiero voli in ciel
Rec: Ma fermati pensier
Arija: Per te lasciai la luce
Rec: Non ti bastava ingrato
Arija: Lascia omai le brune vele
Rec: Ma siamo giunti in Lete
Entrée
Minuet: In questa amene – Rec: Si disse Clori – Minuet da capo
About the performer:
Stjepan Nodilo was born in 1986 in Dubrovnik, where he completed his primary and secondary music education. He continued his further music education, specializing in the field of early music, abroad: since 2005, he has been studying the recorder in Vienna at the University of Music and Applied Arts in the class of Hans M. Kneihs, with whom he received his master’s degree in 2012. He also studied baroque oboe in the class of Carin van Heerden at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz and with Andreas Helm at the University of Graz, where he completed his master’s degree. He plays actively in numerous ensembles in Austria and Germany. Of the more significant musical collaborations, the one with Ton Koopman, Enrico Onofri, Aap Hakkinen, Stefan Gottfried and with L’Orfe, the baroque orchestra from Linz, stands out. Since 2016, he has been the first oboist of the Croatian Baroque Ensemble in Zagreb.
After graduating from the secondary Varaždin School of Music, Jelena Štefanić entered the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where she received her master’s degree in opera in the class of Gabriela Lechner, Paul Esterhazy and the conductor Cristoph Ulrich Meier. She trained with baritone Natale de Carolis, Ruža Pospiš Baldani and currently is working with Barbara Frittoli. Recent engagements include a guest appearance at OperaMaya in Cancun, Mexico with ten gala concerts (Teatro di Cancun, Teatro de la Ciudad, Playa Carmen, Teatro di Valladolid, Tulum, etc.), the world premiere of Belcanto meets Tango in Den Haag Diligentia Theater, Utrecht Theater, Zevenaar, Rotterdam, Nijmegen. This is followed by a performance at the summer festival Opera in the Gardens in London (Opera Kensington), Traviata at the Mythos Festival in Teatro Greco in Taormina, a performance at the summer festival in Catania at Cortilo Platamone and at the State Opera Maldybayev Bishkek. She performs in Grofica Marica (a co-production of HNK Varaždin and Zagreb Theater Komedija), sings Leonora in Osijek, debuts in Verdi’s Requiem as well as Vier Letzte Lieder by Richard Strauss in Konstanz, London debut (Madonna Bella) in Bridewell Teatre, Vitellija debut (La clemenza di Tito) in Konstanz, the debut of Leonora (Il Trovatore) in HNK Osijek. Followed by Elettre (Idomeneo) at Cres cultural evenings, operetta debut in the role of Rosalind (Šišmiš) at the Summer Operetta Festival in Mullheim, Donna Anne (Don Giovanni) at HNK Osijek, First Lady (Magic Flute) at the State Opera in in Bulgaria, Angelice (Orlando) in Konstanz, Madonna Belle (Caccia lontana) in INK Pula and HNK Varaždin. Less than a month ago, she was a guest at the NO(c )TE (s) Aqua Iasae Festival in Verdi’s Requiem and in October she is waiting for a guest appearance at the Marin Držić Theater in Dubrovnik in the role of Tosca and the Beauty of Sacred Music project (G. B. Pergolesi) in Varaždin.
On the concert stage, Jelena Štefanić performed numerous solo performances in Croatia, Austria, Great Britain, Poland, Germany and China. The most important include performances at the Musikverein in Graz, Musikverein in Vienna, NCPA in Beijing, Hanghzou Grand Theatre, Suzhou Grand Theatre, Ningbo Grand Theatre, Kensington Opera House in London, Great Hall of the People, China…
She is also an ISing alumna! festival in China (artistic director – bass Hao Jian Tian, and honorary member, among others, Placido Domingo). In 2012, she was invited to the biggest opera competition as the first, and still the only, Croatian singer to the big Operalia, the Placido Domingo competition. Since 2016, he has been participating in a special musical concept – Concert in the Dark. The realization of these concerts was also supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia for four years. In 2016, the record company Aulos released a sound carrier – Varaždinske Toplice, Dva glasa, Ruža Pospiš Baldani, Jelena Štefanić. In 2021, he recorded success with his own Croatian Jewels project. The project was supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and was broadcast first on TV-Classique, Versailles, and then had its American premiere on Sparrow Live. The concert/project Around the World in Nine Songs was also, with the renewed support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, premiered on 5/22/2022 on the American market of Sparrow Live, an online platform for serious music. Since 2019, she has been a member of HZSU and HGDU.
The Croatian Baroque Ensemble is the most important Croatian ensemble specializing in historically informed interpretation of music of the Baroque period and recent epochs, on original instruments and their replicas. The ensemble was founded in 1999 and brings together musicians of the younger generation with the spirit and poetics of the time in which it originated. The director of the ensemble is the renowned violinist Laura Vadjon. In addition to 20 years of holding a series of concerts at the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb, they are regular guests of numerous domestic and foreign festivals (Varaždin Baroque Evenings, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Split Summer, Korcula Baroque Festival, Zagreb Baroque Festival, Music Evenings in St. Donat, Histria Festival , Osor Music Evenings, Concerts in Euphrasian, Rovinj Music Summer, Watermelon Evenings, Summer Events in Krk, Passion Heritage, Organum Histriae, Baroque Music in the Baroque Church in Osijek, Mostar Festival, Pag Summer, Brod Summer, Croatian Music Festival in Vienna, Festival of Spiritual Music of Central European Countries in Rome, Belgrade Festival of Early Music, Festival Brežice, Festival Tesori musicali Tuscany in Pisa, Festival Misiones de Chiquitos, Bolivia, Festival Esteban Salas, Havana-Cuba, Tartini Festival in Piran, Festival in old Krakow … as well as other Festivals in Austria, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Finland, Sweden, France, Belgium, Slovakia, Estonia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Argentina, Spain, Portugal …
Over the past twenty years, HRBA has collaborated with the world’s best artists, specialists in performing baroque music. This is a list of the names of the ensemble’s most important growing friends: Catherine Mackintosh, Herve Niquet, Enrico Onofri,, Laurence Cummings, Andreas Helm Rachel Brown, Alessandro Tampieri, Jaap ter Linden, Richard Egarr, Jacques Ogg, Werner Ehrhardt, Marcello Gatti Stefano Montanari, Aapo Hakkinen, Philip Pickett, David Staff, Theresa Caudle, Russel Gilmour, Peter van Hauwelingen, Mimi Mitchel, Christopher Lawrey, Hugo Hymas, Mitchell Sandler, Shalev Ad-El, Adrian Butterfield, Peter Lönnerberg, Ryo Terakado, David Bates , Peter van Heyghen, Gail Hennesy, Andrew Lawrence King, Benjamin Bayl … The ensemble also collaborates with the Vocal Ensemble Antiphonus as well as with the choirs Cantores Santi Marci and IG Kovacic.
Croatian composers are also represented in HRBA’s programs, ie those who worked in this field (F. Sponga-Usper, G. Usper, T. Cecchini, V. Jelić, I. Lukačić, G. Puliti, L. Sorkočević, M. Stratico, IM Jarnović …). HRBA is responsible for the first permanent recordings of their works on old instruments from purified scores, without editorial interventions. The Croatian Baroque Ensemble received the Milka Trnina Diploma of the Croatian Society of Music Artists in 2001, the Orlando Award given by Dubrovnik Summer Festival in 2014, the Ivan Lukačić Award of the Varaždin Baroque Evenings in 2016, and the City of Zagreb Award in 2020.
Due to particularly interesting, virtuoso, lively and engaged interpretations, music critics and the audience rank them at the very top of Croatian music reproduction.