The music program of the Ohrid Summer Festival continues tonight with the performance of the Mixed Choir of the Kosovo Philharmonic from Pristina. The concert will be held in the church “St. Sophia” starting at 21:00.
The Kosovo Philharmonic Choir is a professional ensemble of 50 singers. In a way, he continues the work of the former choir of RTV Pristina, which was well known in the region and beyond in the 80s under the leadership of Rafet Rudy. The choir was disbanded in 1990 due to the military conflict, but a decade later, it was re-established in 2003, now as part of the Kosovo Philharmonic, and has been built into one of the best choral ensembles in the region. Their repertoire is wide and includes works from the Baroque and Romantic repertoire to works by contemporary composers: А. Перт, Е. Whitaker, O. Гјело, Е. Eschenwald, W. Tormis et al. The choir’s concert performances in recent years include masses and oratorios by Mozart, Monteverdi, Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven and Haydn, as well as world premieres of new works by Kosovo composers. The choir performs in important halls and buildings such as: the Cathedral of St. Louis in Paris, the Whitrock Theater in Hastings, the Pontifical Basilica of San Paolo Fouri le Moura in Rome, the Amphitheater in Durres, the Eucharistic Basilica in Poreре and others. Collaborate with guest conductors such as: Marko Vatovec and Damjan Moчниnik (Slovenia), Marcio da Silva (Brazil / UK), Toshio Janagisawa (Japan) and others. With its work, the Kosovo Philharmonic Choir continues the tradition of choral singing that has been present in Kosovo since 1945.
Hajrula Sula is a Kosovo conductor and composer. He studied composition in the class of Mendi Mengiqi at the University of Pristina and conducting in the class of Bajar Berisha. He is presented as a conductor and composer in several countries: Kosovo, Albania, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, Belgium, USA and others. He conducts with orchestras including the Kosovo Philharmonic, the Kosovo Youth Orchestra, the chamber orchestra “Rexho Mulici” and others. In 2015, he was the winner of the Berlin Audition organized by Spectrum Concerts, which brought him a concert at the Berlin Chamber Hall in 2016, where his Clarinet Concerto and Chamber Orchestra Concerto were performed. He attends master classes with conductors: Toshio Janagisawa, Rene Gullikers, John Armstrong, Natalie Marin, and participates in conferences in the United States and Lithuania. He has won two scholarships from MM University in the United States. His compositional work includes works for piano trio and piano quintet, works for violin and cello, Overture for orchestra, Concertino for clarinet and chamber orchestra, Concerto for violin and orchestra, as well as numerous works for vocal ensembles. In 2012 he formed the vocal ensemble “Ataka” which consists of 16 professional singers, and the same year he became an assistant to the Kosovo Philharmonic Choir. He works as a teacher in the music school “Prenk Jakova” in Gjakova.
