Egon Mihajlovič

harpsichordist and conductor

Artistic director and conductor of Slovenian Baroque Orchestra in Consort is harpsichordist and conductor Egon Mihajlovič. He was born in 1972 in Postojna, Slovenia. He had studied harpsichord and early keyboard instruments at the Conservatory of Music and Performing Art in Frankfurt (Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt a. M.), Germany, where he graduated in 1992. In 1996 he concluded his postgraduate specialization in harpsichord and early music.

Since 1990 he has performed as harpsichordist at major concert venues and festivals across Europe and the United States. As conductor and artistic director for baroque opera and sacred baroque music he has worked on numerous opera performances and concerts with various European musical theatres and musical venues such as Markgräfliches Opernhaus Bayreuth, Berliner Tage der Allen Musik, Festival di Teatro Greco Antico Lecce, Slovenian National Theatre Maribor, Slovenian National Opera Theatre Ljubljana and Theater Freiburg.

From 1994 to 2007 he acted as artistic director of early music festival Tage der Alten Musik Berlin-Steglitz. He was also founder and artistic director of early music festival Ars et Musica Antiqua Perast in the period 2002-2008. Between 2004 -2008 he was music editor and board member of Grad Teatar Festival in Budva.

As assistant professor for harpsichord, early keyboard instruments and early music he was employed at musical arts institutes of higher education and musical academies in Wurzburg (1998-2000), Nurnberg (2001), Cetinje (2002-2003) and Pesaro (2006-2008).

Since 2009 he has been passing on his extensive professional knowledge of musical performance and theory as full professor for harpsichord at The Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana, where he successfully leads the Department for Early Music as head of the department.

In 2013 his exceptional work and achievements in the field of artistic performance of early music were honoured by the Gold Plaque of the University of Ljubljana, which the University bestows for exceptional contributions in the development of scientific, teaching or artistic endeavours.

He is considered the first professional harpsichordist and early music specialist in the region of north-western Balkans.

Theresa Plut

sopranist

Soprano Theresa Plut, known for her “crystal clear soprano voice and breath-taking high notes”, has performed under the baton of prominent conductors such as John Fiore, Alexander Joel, Nicholas Milton, Emmanuel Villaume, among others. E. Villaume invited her to tour Europe with Anna Netrebko in the concert production of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and record it for Deutsche Grammophone. Immediately upon completing her studies, Theresa Plut became a member of the Ensemble of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Germany, where she gave her debut as Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte) and went on to perform the roles of Casilda (The Gondoliers), Serpetta (La finta giardiniera), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Gretel (Hänsel and Gretel), Walter (La Wally), Olympia (Hoffmann’s Erzählungen), etc. She has made guest appearances with the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, the SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, Theater Winterthur, the Royal Opera Bangkok, and collaborated with stage directors Christof Loy and Philipp Harnoncourt.

As a concert soloist, she has performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Opernorchester Stuttgart, the Jenaer Philharmonie, the Bach Collegium Zürich, the Slovenian Philharmonic, the Slovenian Radio and Television Orchestra, repertoire such as Brahms’ Requiem, Mozart’s C-minor Mass, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Bach’s Johannes Passion, Mahler’s 4th Symphony…

Theresa has also proven to be an exceptional interpreter of Art Song, regularly giving recitals at home and abroad. She has been invited to perform and lecture in Beijing (China), and received an honorary professorship from the Central National University of Beijing. She is currently assistant professor of Voice at the Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana. Theresa holds a Master’s Degree in Vocal Performance from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Zürich, as well as the Operndiplom from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart. Theresa was born to Slovenian parents in beautiful Vancouver, Canada.

Nevenka Tršan Hočevar

flautist

Nevenka Tršan Hočevar graduated from the Academy of Music in Ljubljana  with the modern flute in the class of Prof. Matej Zupan. In 2016 she obtained her master’s degree at the School of Economics and Business in Ljubljana under Prof. Vlado Dimovski on the topic of the operations of non-profit organisations in the field of culture. In 2018 she completed her master’s degree education in the recorder under Assist. Prof. Mateja Bajt at the Department of Early Music of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. At the same time, she also studied the Baroque (traverso) flute under Prof. Lucia Rizzello. In addition to her full-time studies, she attended master classes under the following professors: M. M. Kofler, M. Conti, M. Mercelli, H. M. Kneihs, K. Lugmayer, M. Bajt, R. Brown, H. M. Linde.

As a flautist she participated in both national and international competitions, where she won first prizes as soloist and in chamber groups. More recently, she has performed with the recorder. In 2013, she performed with the Le Phénix recorder quartet at the Vransko Summer Evenings event. The same year she also performed at the final concert of the Musica Locopolitana festival. In 2014, she played the recorder with the choir of APZ Tone Tomšič in the performance and recording of Ajdna, composed by Lojze Lebič. In 2017, she held a concert performance as part of the Risonanze Festival at the Malborghetto Venetian palace for the event of the European Day of Early Music. At this festival she also ran a workshop on the evolution of the recorder. She also plays in concert with the recorder and Baroque flute as a member of the Baroque orchestra of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana and the Slovenian Baroque orchestra. In 2018, she founded the Slovenian Baroque Orchestra Institute together with Prof. Egon Mihajlovič, which is an institute that preserves Baroque cultural heritage. Within the context of the institute, she organises the Ljubljana Barok festival of Baroque music and the BaroKam summer school in Kamnik.

Together with her students of the recorder and the flute, Nevenka Tršan Hočevar regularly takes part in national and international competitions and has achieved great success.

Monika Toth

violinist

Monika Toth (1974) received her degree with distinction in violin pedagogy and chamber music performance from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Szeged, Hungary, in 1997. In 1999, she was awarded grants by the Soros Foundation and the Marco Fodella Foundation, which allowed her to study baroque violin and specialise in early music at the Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milan under the guidance of Enrico Gatti. Subsequently, she received a master’s degree cum laude in baroque violin from the Vincenzo Bellini Conservatorium in Palermo in 2007 as a student of Enrico Onofri. She also attended the masterclasses of Simon Standage, Lucy van Dael, Jaap Schröder, Bart Kuijken, and Malcolm Bilson.

She won second prize at the Premio Bonporti Rovereto International Chamber Music Competition (Italy) in 2000 and third prize at the International Telemann Competition in Magdeburg (Germany) in 2001. Both times, the head of the international jury was Gustav Leonhardt.

Between 2000 and 2006, she was a member and leader of the Orfeo Baroque Orchestra in Budapest, under György Vashegyi.

She appears regularly with leading early music groups and chamber ensembles, including I Barocchisti, Imaginarium Ensemble, Ensemble Zefiro, Accademia Bizantina, Il Giardino Armonico, Dolce e Tempesta, Europa Galante, Capella Leopoldina Graz, Barucco Wien, Neue Hofkapelle Graz, Accentus Austria, L’Eclisse, Ensemble Castor, and Stella Matutina.

She is regularly invited as a chamber musician, leader and soloist to prestigious international festivals, such as the Regensburg, Berlin, Barcelona, Leipzig, Vienna, Salzburg, Trigonale, Mantova, Milano, Krakow, Stockholm, Cuopio, Mexico City, Creta and Jerusalem Festivals. She has contributed to numerous recordings (50 CDs, 1 DVD, 1 book with CD) with Decca, EMI, Sony, Archiv, Naiv, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Arts, Chandos, Hungaroton, RTSI, Symphonia, Amadeus, Taktus, Erato, Querstand, Panclassics, Passacalia, Arcana, Preiser Records, Brilliant Classics and Virgin labels.

She works with renowned singers such as Cecilia Bartoli, Philippe Jaroussky, Julia Lezhneva, Max Cencic, Gemma Bertagnoli, Klaus Mertens, Silvia Frigato and Roberta Mameli; with conductors such as Diego Fasolis, Giovanni Antonini, Alain Curtis and Gustav Leonhardt; and with instrumental soloists like Andreas Staier, Enrico Onofri, Balázs Máté, Gabriele Cassone, Alfredo Bernardini, Malcolm Bilson, Bahrt Kuijken and Elisa Citterio.

She has regularly taught baroque violin at early music summer academies in Hungary from 2003, and in Italy and Poland as well. She is the founder of the Miszla Baroque Early Music Academy (founded 2011), which takes place twice a year at the Nemeskéry baroque villa in Miszla, Hungary (www.miszla-art.hu).

She was a jury member for the selection of the Ambronay Academy Baroque Orchestra in 2015 in France, Holland and Italy. From 2012, she is Tutor of young baroque string players of the I Talenti Vulcanici Baroque Orchestra at the Centro di Musica Antica della Pietá de’Turchini, Naples.

From 2018/19 she is lecturer for baroque violin at the University of Ljubljana. In 2019, Mónika Tóth was honoured with the Betty Wager Prize by the City of Heves, Hungary, her hometown, for her achievements in early music.

Kaja Kapus

cellist

Kaja Kapus studied baroque cello with Werner Matzke at the Trossingen University of Music and with Jaap ter Linden at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and chamber music in Early Music with Linde Brunmayr Tutz at the Trossingen University of Music. Additionally she took part in the master classes with Markus Möllenbeck, Martin Zeller, Kristin von der Goltz, Guido Larisch, Gerhart Darmstadt, Alison McGillivray and Lars Ulrik Mortensen.

With the ensembles Suono basso, Ensemble La Pace, Melas Drymos, La Suave Melodia, La Sirenissima, Bern Consort and Fontanella Consort she had concerts in Slovenia, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and in the Netherlands, among others in the festivals Dnevi stare glasbe, 1. European Day of Early Music, Imago Sloveniae, Oude Muziek Utrecht – Fringe, Festival of Early Music Accademia Musicae Antiquae Labacensis and barockFestlich. She participated in the concert performances of the Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas in the production of the Vokalna akademija Ljubljana. The opera performance came out on a cd and was filmed by the National Television of Slovenia. In December 2014 she played as a soloist and in an ensemble in the broadcast Barockmusik zum Advent of the Swiss National Television SRF1.

In the academic year 2017/2018 she prepared and led three workshops for baroque cello for the students of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana and from the academic year 2018/2019 she regularly teaches there baroque cello.

Barbara Jernejčič Fürst

mezzo-sopranist

Barbara Jernejčič was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She studied chorus conducting and solo singing at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Graz. She passed a degree exam with distinction and became a Master of Arts and Music.
She was a member of the Flanders Opera in Gent, Belgium, and a scholarship-holder of the Steans Institute for Young Artists within the framework of the Ravinia Festival in Chicago.

She attended master classes with M. Lipovšek, Ch. Ludwig, D. Fischer-Diskau, M. Martinu, R. Piernay and courses on baroque singing with B. Schlick and Ch. Rousset.

On the stages of Flanders Opera in Gent, Antwerpen, Theather an der Wien, Vienna Chamber Opera, Festival Retz, Maribor and Ljubljana she has performed a number of roles.

As a concert singer she has performed in main Slovene festivals as well as Steiricher Herbst Festival, the Bregenzer Festspiele Festival, the Sryarte Festival, the Internationale Woche für alte Musik Krieglach, Festival Ecchi lontani, Wien Modern, Zagrebški bienale, Klangwerktage Hamburg, Frühling Festival in Musikverein, Carinthischer Sommer and others collaborating with Slovene philharmonic Orchestra, Radio Orchestra, Slowind, La petite bande, Armonico Tributo Austria, Solamente naturali, Musica Aeterna, Klangforum Wien, Niederösterreichische Tonkünstlerorchestra, ORF Radio- Symphonieorchestra Vienna etc.
In her rich concert career, she has given performance of many notable works. She is one of the rare performers focused on the contemporary works of Slovene composers (she sang over 50 first performances).

She has published an album with an entire opus of songs by Marij Kogoj, an album Dotiki with works by Slovene composers for solo voice and arias by Monteverdi, as well as an album In the Hollow of Heaven with works by Slovene composers for mezzo-soprano and piano.

She is Professor of Singing at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana.