SAXGO21 SUMMER SCHOOL MENTORS

SAXOPHONE SUMMER SCHOOL 2021 MENTORS

CLASSICAL SAXOPHONE WORKSHOP

Matjaž Drevenšek (Slovenija, 1965) is a resident professor of saxophone and Vice Dean at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. A soloist and a chamber musician (member of the Zagreb Saxophone Quartet, Trio Juhart - Lazar - Drevenšek Trio and other classical, jazz and rock bands in Europe), he performs throughout Europe, South and Central America, Asia, Canada and the USA. As a soloist, he plays with leading symphony and wind orchestras at home and abroad (France, Croatia, China and the USA) and is the saxophone soloist of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra. He is member of the jury at national and international competitions for young musicians (Bayreuth, Belgrade, Graz, Krško, Limoges, Nichelino / Turin, Nova Gorica, Požarevac, Riga, Skopje, Szczecinek, Zagreb) and leads numerous summer schools and masterclasses in Europe, Hong Kong, and the USA. He has premiered more than 50 new compositions of Slovenian and foreign authors and participated in 20 discographic publications. He chaired the Saksofonija Music Society, which hosted the 14th World Saxophone Congress during the summer of 2006, and Jeunesses Musicales Slovenia. From 2004 to 2019 he was the artistic director of International Saxophone Meetings SAXGO and International Saxophone Competition in Nova Gorica.

Miha Rogina (Slovenija, 1980), has been described as ‘The best saxophonist of today’s younger generation’ by The Sax Magazine. He is accredited for his innovative interpretations of musical works. He has won 1st prize at 10 international competitions. He has worked with today’s leading musicians including Pierre Boulez and Fabio Luisi and appeared at major international concert stages throughout Europe, Asia, the USA and Africa such as the Musikverein in Vienna, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Großes Festspielhaus in Salzburg or Izumi Hall in Japan. He first studied at the Ljubljana Music Academy with Matjaž Drevenšek, and continued his studies in France with Jean-Yves Fourmeau, Vincent David and at the prestigious CNSM de Paris with Claude Delangle, where he graduated with highest honours. He also studied at the renowned Eastman School of Music in the USA. In 2015 he graduated orchestral conducting from the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna where he studied under Johannes Wildner, Bertrand de Billy and U. Lajovic. In 2019 he also graduated choral conducting from the same university under Thomas Lang. As soloist he performed with a number of orchestras, including the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, symphonic orchestras such as Hoffer, Bruges, Saint Maur and Paris Laureates and Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the RTV Slovenia Symphonic Orchestra. He is an active chamber musician. He works with concert pianist Sae Lee with whom they perform worldwide as the Duo Kalypso. Miha Rogina is associate professor at the Music Academy of the Ljubljana University and has been a guest lecturer at Senzoku Gakuen University in Tokyo since 2013. Since 2017, he has been a guest lecturer at the Osaka College of Music (Japan) and Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Rogina leads masterclasses at universities across Japan, the UK, Latvia, Poland, Finland, Germany and Austria, and is a member of jury at national and international saxophone competitions. As a conductor he has led orchestras such as the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, RTV Slovenia Symphonic Orchestra, Symphonic orchestra of Slovene national theatre, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Pro-Arte Symphonic Orchestra, Paris Conesrvatory Chamber Orchestra and the Wind Symphonic Orchestra of the Ljubljana Academy of Music. As a member of Vienna based choir Wiener Singverein, he collaborated under leadership of renowned conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Mariss Jansons, Daniel Barenboim etc.

Jan Gričar (Slovenija, 1992) is part of the younger generation of successful Slovenian musicians. He graduated with highest honours from the Academy of Music in Ljubljana under the supervision of Matjaž Drevenšek and Miha Rogina. He continued his music career in France, where he studied at the Regional Conservatory of Versailles under Vincent David, and obtained a masters’ degree at the prestigious Paris Music Conservatory under the supervision of Claude Delangle. Moreover, he obtained a bachelors’ degree in chamber music with Laszlo Hadady. He regularly performs all over Slovenia, Europe and in Japan. As a soloist, he performed with the Vienna Symphonic orchestra, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, RTV Slovenia Symphonic Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra. In his career, he has worked with the Ensemble Intercontemporain and renowned conductors such as En Shao, Matthias Pintscher, Anton Nanut and Marko Letonja. Gričar placed first in many national and international competitions such as TEMSIG – Slovenian Music Competition for Youth, Fiorindo International Music Competition, SVIREL – International Music Competition, International saxophone competition in Nova Gorica, etc. He was presented with the Škerjanc Award for special achievements in music by the Ljubljana Conservatory of Music and Ballet and two other significant awards given by the University of Ljubljana, the Prešeren Award and the Outstanding Academic Achievement Award. He was also a Zois Scholarship holder of the Ministry of culture Slovenia for many years. He works as a pedagogue at the Music and Ballet Conservatory in Ljubljana, where he teaches saxophone and chamber music.
www.jangricar.com

JAZZ SAXOPHONE WORKSHOP

Daniele D'Agaro (Italija, 1958) started playing saxophone when he was sixteen. In 1979, he moved to Berlin where he worked as a waiter at the Quasimodo Jazzclub and studied saxophone. In 1983, he moved to the Netherlands where he studied jazz at the Swelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. He founded a quartet with his colleague and saxophonist Tobias Delius and soon hit the stage at the Dutch jazz club BIMHUIS. In 1989, together with the cellist Tristan Honsinger and bassist Ernst Glerum he formed Trio Lingua Franca and recorded an album for Nimbus Records in California. With fellow saxophonists Sean Bergin and Tobias Delius, D'Agaro formed the Trio San Francisco and recorded the album “Strandjutters” for the Dutch label BV Haast. In 1995, D'Agaro found some unpublished works by the American saxophonist Don Byas in the Dutch Jazz Archive. The same year, he formed a quintet with trumpeter Benny Baily and recorded the album "Hidden Treasures" for the Italian Nota Records. In 1996 he moved to his home town Udine where he formed a duo with church organist Mauro Costantini. They have presented a repertoire of the 13th century sacred music and music from the three sacred concerts of Duke Ellington. He founded the Chicago Overtones Quartet and regularly toured in the USA. He formed a duo with the pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and performed with his orchestra Globe Unity. Today, D'Agaro conducts his Ultramarine trio for clarinet, marimba and acoustic guitar. And he also recorded the album "Ucej" for the Slovenian label Klopotec.

Boštjan Simon (Slovenija, 1982) returned to Slovenia after graduating from the Amsterdam Conservatory and has created many ensembles with an international outreach. With Trus!, Velkro and Litosht he explored various approaches in improvisation, performing on stages that were not used to such sounds. At the moment, he leads the ensemble There Be Monsters, and he occasionally performs with the Trieste Early Jazz Orchestra - TEJO, RTV Slovenia Big Band, Milan Stanisavlević Quintet, Robert Jukič Quartet, Quartzite Quartet and Big band Nova. He focuses on sax improvisation combining it with live electronic music and polyrhythmic approaches to composition.  

COMPOSITION AND IMPROVISATION MASTERCLASS WITH STEVE LEHMAN

Steve Lehman (USA, 1978), has been described as “a state-of-the-art musical thinker” and a "dazzling saxophonist,” by The New York Times. A composer, performer, educator, and recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship (2015) and the Doris Duke Artist Award (2014). He received his B.A. (2000) and M.A in Composition from Wesleyan University where he studied under Anthony Braxton, Jay Hoggard, and Alvin Lucier, while concurrently working with Jackie McLean at the Hartt School of Music. He received his doctorate with distinction in Music Composition from Columbia University (2012), where his principal teachers included Tristan Murail and George Lewis. Lehman has taught undergraduate courses at Wesleyan University, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, New School University, and Columbia University. He also presented lectures at Amherst College, UC Berkeley, The Berklee School of Music, The Banff Centre, The Royal Academy of Music in London, and IRCAM in Paris, where he is frequently engaged as a visiting research fellow. He is currently a professor of Music at The California Institute of the Arts, and lives in Los Angeles. He works across a broad spectrum of experimental musical idioms. Lehman’s works for large orchestra and chamber ensembles have been performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), So Percussion, the American Composers Orchestra, the JACK Quartet, the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, and the Talea Ensemble. His album Mise en Abîme (Pi, 2014) has been chosen as the best jazz album of the year by NPR Music and Los Angeles Times, whereas his previous album Travail, Transformation & Flow (Pi, 2009) was chosen as the top jazz album of the year by the New York Times. Lehman is an alto saxophonist who has performed and recorded nationally and internationally with his own ensembles and with those led by Anthony Braxton, Vijay Iyer, Bennie Maupin, Jason Moran, Georgia-Anne Muldrow, George Lewis, Meshell Ndegeocello, and HPrizm of Antipop Consortium. His recent electro-acoustic music has focused on the development of computer-driven models for improvisation, based in the Max/MSP programming environment. Lehman’s work has been favourably reviewed in Artforum, Downbeat Magazine, The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Wire, and on National Public Radio, the BBC, and SWR. As a Fulbright scholar in France during the 2002-2003 academic year, Lehman began researching the reception of African-American experimental composers working in France during the 1970s. His article in the journal Critical Studies in Improvisation, “I Love You with an Asterisk: African-American Experimental Composers and the French Jazz Press, 1970-1980,” is based on his Fulbright research. More recently, Lehman has published writings and presented lectures on a wide range of topics, including rhythm cognition and European notions of American experimentalism. His current scholarship examines the overlapping histories of spectral composition and jazz improvisation. Tina Lešničar wrote about Lehman in the Delo newspaper in 2015: "Visionary, one of the transforming figures of early 21st century jazz, musician of the year ... these are the superlatives New York Times, LA Time chose to describe Steve Lehman. His music, bordering spectral harmony, mathematical rhythmical patterns and improvisation, is considered a turning point in jazz music.
www.stevelehman.com