What role does research play in your creative work – for example, research into materials, images, voices or stories?
Research plays an essential role. Before I begin composing a new piece or preparing a concert on a particular theme, I research the subject thoroughly. As I do not want to repeat myself, I need to keep exploring new themes.
I am particularly fond of drawing on the past, as this allows me to contribute to the revival or preservation of “forgotten” melodies, motifs, characters, stories, events and so on. In my choral compositions I use quotations from thinkers of the past and weave in fragments of Gregorian chant and incorporate similar elements. If I were to compose a piece without a specific story or background, it would feel too “superficial” to me.
Can music help audiences understand a puppet character or the story it represents in a different way?
Perhaps the easiest way to answer this question is by asking you another: “How would you experience a movie in which the actors performed their roles but there was no music?” It is simply the way the two are intertwined—music can support a character, convey emotions, create an atmosphere and do much more.
How do students, in your opinion, contribute to the development of the University’s arts ecosystem? Are they primarily there to learn, or are they also co-creators of the University’s artistic environment?
I often invite students to collaborate with me in my own artistic field. This gives them first-hand experience of art in practice, while also connecting them with the professional environments (not only educational, but also artistic) in which they will need to find their place and create after graduation.
Among the future music professionals I educate are also choral conductors. While still studying, they develop their competences and are already artistically active, either by conducting choirs or by composing their own works. I encourage and support them throughout this process.
One example is our participation in the Youth Choral Festival in Celje, held at the beginning of April this year. Together with the students, we led educational workshops on contemporary choral language and also presented a short piece for children’s choir and piano composed by one of our students. The students’ ideas, artistic research and artistic activity are often a source of inspiration to me as well.
How important do you consider collaboration between different artistic and scientific fields within the University? Do you see potential for greater interdisciplinary collaboration?
Artists often develop their own style and perspective on art, whether within their own artistic field or in relation to other art forms. This makes collaboration with others (whether with other artists, artistic disciplines or scientific fields) all the more important.
Considering other people’s perspectives, accepting differences and following the solutions they develop can sometimes be essential to our own work and its further development.
Do you also collaborate with other researchers by using your artistic work to help promote their scientific achievements or research?
Although my collaboration with researchers is not necessarily formalised through joint projects, I can nevertheless view my artistic activity as an indirect contribution to the promotion of research. Through artistic expression, I popularise selected research topics in my own way.
In this context, I see the artwork as a means through which scientific and theoretical insights are transformed into an aesthetic experience or made more accessible to the wider public.
