MARIO KURTJAK - MUSICIAN AND SCIENTIST
Mario Kurtjak (1989) is a Slovenian guitarist, guitar professor, composer and scientist with a Master’s degree in Chemistry and a PhD in Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies. After completing undergraduate guitar studies summa cum laude with prof. Andrej Grafenauer at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, he obtained a Master of Arts degree with distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied with prof. Michael Lewin, David Russell and Fabio Zanon. In 2019 he won the 2nd prize (the first was not awarded) and the audience prize at the prestigious 16th International Guitar Competition Miguel Llobet in Barcelona. He regularly performs over Europe as a soloist and a member of various chamber ensembles, among which currently most active are Slovenian Guitar Quartet (with Erazem Grafenauer, Simon Krajnčan and Aljoša Vrščaj) and Solent Duo (with the Colombian soprano Meliza Metzger). In 2021 he collaborated with the ensemble Neofonia to perform contemporary music as part of their project New Music Forum, performed as a soloist with the Domžale-Kamnik Symphony Orchestra, in a guitar duo with Erazem Grafenauer as part of the Kit-Ara concert series, in the Slovenian guitar quartet at the Academia Musicae Labacensis Guitar Festival and the Klasika na Vrhu concert series, and upon invitation of Imago Sloveniae he participated as a soloist and chamber musician in the concert 4Guitars. Last year the project 4Guitars repeated in Velenje and Mario also returned to London to perform as a soloist and in the Solent duo, while the Slovenian Guitar Quartet appeared in the Chamber studio series of the Slovenian national radio and in the Rasgueado concert series in Ljubljana. Mario Kurtjak has also organized his own Logaške kitarodije concert series for four years in a row. As a composer, he is currently best known for his Guitar sonata no. 1, which was premiered by Erazem Grafenauer, who then placed this composition on his CD Works of Slovenian Composers, released with Baros records in 2019. Mario Kurtjak teaches guitar at the Conservatory of Music in Ljubljana, and every year since 2015 he teaches and conducts the guitar orchestra at the Guitar Summer School in Črnomelj. Since February 2019, he has been the president of the Slovenian Guitar Teachers' Association (EGTA Slovenia).
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