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Towards the opening of the new concert season of the Croatian House Split, the first Split concert presentation of the newly launched Dalmatian cycle, a pilot project of cooperation between the Zadar Concert Office, the Croatian Home Split Concert Hall and the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra. The program is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia. The purpose of the project is to structure a (long-term) platform for the exchange of domestic and foreign musical ensembles and artists through the synergistic action of Dalmatian cultural institutions in order to create new program concepts, improve concert activity throughout the year and encourage audience development in the cities where the aforementioned institutions operate. The Zadar Chamber Orchestra, one of the most representative Croatian chamber ensembles, and Kajana Pačko, a distinguished Croatian cellist with a rich international career, will perform at the concert. The concert will be conducted by maestro Pavle Zajcev. The program includes the works of Šima and Pavle Dešpalj and Josef Suk.
Zadar Chamber Orchestra has been operating since 1961 and is one of the most representative Croatian chamber ensembles. Today it is led by maestro Ivan Repušić, a conductor from Zadar with an extremely active international career. In its development, the Orchestra has gone through a difficult path. The founder Pavle Dešpalj and the artistic directors Petar Vrbančić, Dragan Novak and maestro Ivan Repušić, with their tireless efforts and work, realized the goal that was clearly set at the beginning: to enable concerts and the joy of playing music in Zadar and the people of Zadar. To date, the Zadar Chamber Orchestra has held more than 150 concerts under the direction of Pavel Dešpalj, Igor Kuljerić, Petr Vrbančić, Valter Dešpalj, Maja Dešpalj-Begović, Antun Dolički, Branka Višić Karavid, Tetsuji Honna, Eda Mičić, Berislav Šipus, Tomislav Fačini, Chikara Iwamura, Tonči Bilić and others. Radovan Vlatković, Giorgio Surian, Boštjan Lipovšek, Marin Maras, Evelin Novak, Martina Filjak, Prerad Deticek, Ljiljana Molnar-Talajić, Pavica Gvozdić, Valentina Fijačko Kobić, Petrit Çeku, Srđan Bulat, Željko Milić performed as soloists, along with Zadar string players. and Vedran Kocelj, as well as many people from Zadar: Gordana Zubović Pavić, Jurica Šoša, Mario Šoša, Lucija Brnadić, Ankica Šoša Graziani, Boris Martinović and others. The orchestra has toured in Austria, France and Spain, as well as at Croatian music festivals. The repertoire he nurtures includes works from baroque, classicism and romanticism to contemporary music. The orchestra is particularly inclined to perform works by Croatian composers, and regularly includes commissioned works by contemporary local authors in its repertoire. The concertmaster of the Zadar Chamber Orchestra is the renowned Croatian violinist Marco Graziani, who leads the Soloists and the String Quartet, smaller groups from the same musical body. In the Concert Season, the Orchestra holds four to six concerts.
Pavle Zaitsev was born in 1976 in Zagreb. He graduated in cello at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, in the class of prof. Valter Dešpalje, 1998. He completed his postgraduate studies at the Music Academy in Basel, in the class of prof. Ivan Monighetti. As a soloist, he performed with the Zagreb Philharmonic, Zagreb Soloists, HRT Symphony Orchestra, Croatian Chamber Orchestra, Varaždin Chamber Orchestra and Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra. He was a finalist of the 2nd Antonio Janigro International Cello Competition in 2000 in Zagreb. The following year, in 2001, together with the Zagreb Soloists, he premiered Pavel Dešpalj's Concerto for Cello and Strings, which he recorded with the HRT Symphony Orchestra (which was awarded Porina for the best performance). He achieved many successes as a chamber musician and collaborated with artists such as Julian Rachlin, Mischa Maisky, Torleif Thedeen, Lawrence Power, Gordan Nikolić, Đuro Živković, Edin Karamazov, Pavao Mašić, Dmitrij Sinkovsky, Krešimir Stražanac, Krešimir Špicer and others. Since 2010, he has been working as a permanent collaborator of the Antiphonus ensemble under the direction of Tomislav Fačini. From 2002 to 2010, he was a solo cellist in the HRT Symphony Orchestra, since 2005 he has been working as an assistant professor, and since 2013 as an associate professor of chamber music at the Music Academy in Zagreb. He made his first conducting performance in 2011 with the String Orchestra of the Croatian Musical Youth in Grožnjan, whose conductor and artistic director he was from 2011 to 2014. During that period, he conducted several times with the Samobor String Orchestra, the HRT Symphony Orchestra and the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, which is still a regular guest conductor today. In 2017, he enrolled in conducting studies at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, in the class of prof. Mladen Tarbuk and Tomislav Fačini. As a first-year student, he directed the performance of the opera Così fan tutte, in the next season performances of the song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn by Gustav Mahler, and this year two performances of the opera pasticcio Sestra Angelica and the other sisters. As part of the 2018 Cro Patria choir festival in Split, he conducts Claudio Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine with the Antiphonus ensemble. In December 2019, he achieved his first collaboration with the ensemble of the Croatian National Theater Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka, conducting a new production of PI Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet. On the day commemorating the 250th anniversary of the birth of L. van Beethoven, he conducted the Kanconier cycle with the HRT Symphony Orchestra.
Kajana Pačko she was born in Split, and as a fourteen-year-old she enrolled in studies at the Academy of Music in Zagreb in the class of prof. Valter Despalje. He then continues his education in Berlin with prof. Troels Svane and prof. Frans Helmerson at the "Hanns Eisler" College of Music and at the Salzburg "Mozarteum" in the class of Prof. Clemens Hagen. Kajana is one of the versatile musicians who, in addition to solo performances, equally cherish and attach importance to chamber music, pedagogical work, collaboration with composers, organizing festivals and charity concerts, recording video and audio recordings and creating new concert programs. Kajana Pačko has performed on the most important stages of Europe, such as the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin Konzerthaus, and as a soloist she has collaborated with the Cappella Academica Orchestra, the Croatian Radio Television Orchestra, the Zagreb Soloists, the Croatian Chamber Orchestra, the Varaždin Chamber Orchestra, the HNK Split Orchestra and the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra. Kajana collaborates with top musicians such as Danusha Waskiewicz, Diana Tishchenko, Petrit Çeku, Stefan Milenkovic, and members of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. In various combinations, she performed at festivals such as the George Enescu Festival, Musique en Cote Basque, Homburger Kammermusiktage, Salzburger Kammermusik Festival and the Dubrovnik Summer Dance. She also participated in seminars and festivals such as Kronberg Academy, Pablo Casals Festival and IMS Prussia Cove. She is the winner of first prizes at national competitions, the international competition "Alpe-Adria" in Gorizia, the Boris Pergamenschikow Preis in Berlin, the Rector's prize, and the "Darko Lukić" and "Judita" awards, and in 2004 she represented Croatia at the Eurovision Song Contest for young musicians in Luzern. Croatia Records released Kajana's first recordings under the name "Journey through Europe" (2014) with pianist Danijel Detoni, and "Bach+" (2018) with works for cello solo Le Chant de Linos released her third CD with works by Schumann, Brahms, and Maček, along with pianist Danijel Detoni Tomislav Oliver and Frana Đurović, who commissioned her to compose works for cello solo, premiered at the Rovinj BaRoMus festival. Since 2015, Kajana has been the artistic director of the international classical music festival "ZAGREBplus" produced by the Croatian Gazbena Zavod, and she was also the initiator of several charitable concerts and festivals such as the E-concert for the reconstruction of the HGZ (2021), the BEETHOVENplus donor festival (2020) and the Concert for the Children of Ukraine (2020). Kajana Pačko plays the "l'école de Pique" cello made in Paris in 2022.
