Prešeren Prizes Awarded - Sabina Cvilak Damjanovic and Nenad Firšt are recognised from the field of music

The Prešeren and Prešeren Fund Prizes were distributed at a ceremony in Gallus Hall in Ljubljana’s Cankarjev dom on the eve of the Slovenian national cultural holiday, Saturday, February 7. This year’s two Prešeren Fund laureates from the field of music, recognise for their artistic achievements in the last two years, are soprano Sabina Cvilak Damjanovic and composer Nenad Firšt. Prešeren Prizes, Slovenia’s highest award recognising lifetime achievement, were awarded to painter Zmago Jeraj and actress Štefka Drolc. Other Prešeren Fund prize winners were actor Marko Mandic, sculptor Tobias Putrih, author Goran Vojnovic and director Miran Zupanic.

Soprano Sabina Cvilak Damjanovic won the Prešeren Fund Prize in recognition of her portrayals of Michaëla in the opera Carmen, Nedda in the opera Pagliacci, Firodiligi in Cosí fan tutte and Margarete in Faust, as well as for her exceptional interpretations in performances of the Symphonies No. 2 and 4 of Gustav Mahler. Ms. Cvilak Damjanovic studied voice in Graz, where she graduated in 2000. Four years later she received her Masters Degree and went on to continue her training in Paris, Vienna and Helsinki. During the 2004-2005 season she was a Karajan Grant holder and a member of the Vienna State Opera. Among her more acclaimed performances are as soprano soloist Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in Brussels with Mikko Franck and the Belgian National Orchestra, the role of Nedda in a concert performance of Pagliacci with the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra and the Berlioz oratorio L’enfance du Christ with the Slovak Philharmonic under the direction of Leoš Svarovska. Also noted in connection with this year’s prizes were her well received guest appearances at the National Opera in Washington D.C., where she sang Mimi in a production of Puccini’s opera La bohème and Michaëla in Carmen — a role which she repeated in Los Angeles.

Composer Nenad Firšt won the award on the basis of his recent compositions. In the printed catalogue accompanying the awards ceremony, fellow composer Crt Sojar Voglar wrote, ‘The composer Nenad Firšt (born 1964) has been active on Slovenian and international stages for more than 20 years. In his body of work, which comprises mainly instrumental pieces, the composer has fulfilled the task of an artist who has an extraordinary ear for precision, formal and thematic clarity as well as an exceptionally convincing and individual music voice — which is not an easy task these days. There are many today who are of the opinion that it is not possible to find an original musical voice which would not at least partially seem to imitate some already known model, either in its harmonies, instrumentation or sound colours. This is not true for Nenad Firšt, and in this it is necessary to search for the truth of the music of our time, as well as Firšt’s increasing international reputation. All of his works composed in the last two years were premiered to acclaim at internationally recognised concerts and festivals. Among them are the Concertino for flute, saxophone and orchestra (premiered at the Night of Slovenian Composers in 2006), the Concerto for two saxophones and strings (World Saxophone Congress 2006), V tistem trenutku postanka (In the Very Moment of Pause) for chamber ensemble (performed on the Ljubljana Summer Festival, 2006), Magic Mountain for orchestra (premiered on a subscription concert of the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra), Letters for violin and chamber orchestra (premiered by the KOS DSS Chamber Orchestra in London) and Hip for clarinet sextet (first performed in Moscow in 2007). Especially notable is the work Odeon for chamber orchestra, performed by the KOS DSS Chamber Orchestra on a tour through Germany as part of the Slovenian presidency of the EU in 2008. His highly individual leanings towards the avant garde are perceptable in all of his works which, without undue extreme experimentation, attest to an incredible originality that emerges from a synthesis of a special devotion to formal proportions and an expressive mix of thoughtful intimacy and pronounced playfulness, combined with a distinctive melodic voice and harmonic penetration that is always on the edge or just beyond the edge of the traditions of older music. His instrumentation, always in the service of expression, often explores interesting and unfamillier sound colours — sometimes thick and full, other times aleatorically dispersed and mysterious.’