“Ohrid Summer” tonight holds the traditional “EU Evening”

The traditional Evening of the European Union within the Ohrid Summer Festival “will be held tonight under the motto” Bach in the air “.

The clarinetist Mate Bekavac and the flutist Irena Grafenauer will perform in the church “St. Sophia” starting at 9 p.m.

Mate Bekavac is considered one of the most important clarinetists of his generation, despite his relative “commercial shyness”. Born in Ljubljana, he completed his primary music education in his hometown, and then studied at the University of Graz with B. Kovac, holds a master’s degree from the “Mozarteum” in Salzburg in the class of A. Brandhofer. He completed his education at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York in the class of Ch. I also found myself in Paris at the Paris Conservatory with Michel Arignon. He is the winner of the Mozarteum Award in 1992, the Eurovision Jury Prize for Classical Music in Warsaw (1994), the Yamaha Grand Prix in Vienna (1994), as well as the Lisbon Competition (1994), Seville (1994). and Belgrade (1997). He has performed as a soloist with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, the Istropolitano Chapel, the Israel Camera, the Moscow Soloists, the Salzburg Soloists, the Munich Soloists and the Zagreb Soloists, as well as several symphony orchestras in Germany, Switzerland and all of Switzerland.

Chamber music occupies a very important place in the musical life of Mate Bekavac, so he collaborates with: Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Lynn Harel, Heinz Holiger, Irena Grafenauer, the Berlin String Quartet, as well as the quartets “Minge”, “Elena” Do Bashkirova, Katia Buniatishvili, Patricia Kopachinskaya, Sol Gabeta, Alina Ibragimova, Frans Helmerson, Nicholas Altstedt, Maxim Risanov, Antoine Tamestit, with members of the Metropolitan Orchestra, Bavarian Radio and the London Orchestra. Among the conductor names with which he performs stand out: Haitink, Jansons, Harnonkur, Mazur, Mehta, Davis, Jarvi, Makeras, Perachia, Perlman … He is a frequent guest at festivals: Lockenhaus, Jerusalem, Basel, “Festivo” festivals in Ludwigsburg, Dubrovnik, Lucerne and Munich. He has performed as a solo clarinetist in the orchestras of the European Chamber Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.
Irena Grafenauer (1957) was born in Ljubljana and mastered the flute while studying with Boris Champa, Karlheinz Zoller and Aurel Nicolette.

She started her music education at the age of 8, and after graduating from the Music Academy in Ljubljana in 1974, she continued her studies with Karlheinz Zoller and Aurel Nicolette. He won three international competitions: Belgrade (1974), Geneva (1978) and Munich (1979). From 1977-1987 she was the first flutist in the Bavarian Radio Orchestra in Munich where she worked with Rafael Kubelik, Sir Colin Davis and Leonard Bernstein. In 1987 he became a professor at the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg. He has performed all over Europe, but also in the USA, Japan and Australia, and regularly performs with Gidon Kremer, is a guest at his festival in Lockenhaus and tours with “Kremer and Friends”. He has had harpist Maria Graf as his duo partner for many years, and has also collaborated with the Berlin Philharmonic duo Baumann-Stoll, pianists Oleg Meisenberg, Robert Levine and Helmut Deutsch, guitarist Eliot Fisk and the Cherubini Quartet. Her relationship with Mate Bekavac, with whom she literally “lives music”, is especially deep.
Irena Grafenauer has extensive discography recorded for Phillips, Sony and other record labels. Since she was diagnosed with leukemia in 2003, she has rarely appeared on the concert stage.