Philharmonic of the Future: The First Performance of Young Talented Musicians on the Big Stage

Philharmonic of the Future: The First Performance of Young Talented Musicians on the Big Stage

With the traditional concert "Philharmonic of the Future" marking the end of another season at the Croatian National Theatre in Split, professional musicians from the theatre's orchestra will join forces with students from the Josip Hatze Music School. On Saturday, May 25th, at 8 PM, under the baton of maestro Pavle Zajcev, selected students will perform as soloists alongside the HNK Split Orchestra in the first part of the concert. The second part will feature a mixed orchestra of professional musicians and Josip Hatze students performing two compositions by Edvard Grieg.

Philharmonic of the Future: The First Performance of Young Talented Musicians on the Big Stage

Since 2014, the Theatre and the Music School have collaborated on this project, offering young musicians a unique opportunity to perform on a grand stage for the first time, alongside their more experienced colleagues.

The program opens with the Allegro movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, KV 414, with third-year high school student Vita Šimac on piano. This will be followed by the premiere of "Aulosaulos," a three-movement concertino for two oboes and strings by Split composer Ivan Božičević, featuring young oboists Karlo Kosor (third-year) and Antonio Mlinar (fourth-year) as soloists. The first part of the concert concludes with the Allegro non troppo movement from Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 61.

After the intermission, the combined orchestra of HNK Split and Josip Hatze Music School will perform four movements from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46, and "Solveig's Song" from Peer Gynt Suite No. 2, Op. 55, composed as incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's play.

The concert will be conducted by Pavle Zajcev (Zagreb, 1976), who graduated in cello from the Zagreb Academy of Music in 1998 and completed postgraduate studies in Basel. He also studied conducting in Zagreb, where he graduated in 2023. As a cellist, he has performed with the Zagreb Philharmonic, Zagreb Soloists, HRT Symphony Orchestra, Croatian Chamber Orchestra, and Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra. He was a finalist at the "Antonio Janigro" International Cello Competition in 2000. With his trio, he has won numerous awards and performed throughout Europe. From 2002 to 2010, he was the principal cellist of the HRT Symphony Orchestra. Since 2005, he has been teaching at the Zagreb Academy of Music, and in 2024 he became a full professor. His students have won numerous competition awards. As a conductor, he debuted in 2011 and has worked with various orchestras, including the Zagreb Philharmonic and HRT Symphony Orchestra.

The student soloists were prepared by their teachers, Professors Jurij Kot, Sanja Milić, and Tanja Čudina Bratković, while Professor Jakov Jurić prepared the school orchestra.