Ante Grgin (born 1945) is a Croatian

clarinetist The clarinet is a single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches. The clarinet family is the largest woodw ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

Education

Ante Grgin was born in

Kaštel Novi Kaštel Novi is a town within the administrative area of Kaštela in Dalmatia, Croatia.Jeanne Oliver, ''Croatia'', Lonely Planet Publications Its name means ''New Castle''. History Kaštel Novi was founded in 1512. The Fortified village of Cippic ...

PR Croatia The Socialist Republic of Croatia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Socijalistička Republika Hrvatska, Социјалистичка Република Хрватска), commonly abbreviated as SR Croatia and referred to as simply Croatia, was a ...

FPR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

, and started his early training at the School of Music in

Split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, enter ...

. He completed his undergraduate (1969) and graduate (1974) studies at the

Belgrade Music Academy The University of Arts in Belgrade ( sr-cyr, Универзитет уметности у Београду, Univerzitet umetnosti u Beogradu) is a public university in Serbia. It was founded in 1957 as the Academy of Arts to unite four academies. ...

, under the tuition of renowned professor

Bruno Brun Bruno Brun (1910–1978) was a Yugoslav clarinetist and professor at the Belgrade Music Academy. Education Brun was born in Hrastnik, Austro-Hungary, now Slovenia. He graduated from the Belgrade Music Academy in 1945 and continued his educatio ...

Performance career

Grgin was the second, and, later, principal clarinetist of the

Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra The Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra () is an orchestra located in Belgrade, Serbia. It is regularly considered one of the finest in the country. History Unlike most European countries and cities, Serbia and Belgrade were rather late in receivin ...

and is a member of the New Music Ensemble. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has played in the country and abroad (France, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Belarus, China etc.) and took part at various

festivals A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...

, such as: BEMUS, The Days in Honour of Mokranjac, Marble Sounds and others.

Compositions

Grgin has composed a number of pieces for

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

bassoon The bassoon is a musical instrument in the woodwind family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

horn Horn may refer to: Common uses * Horn (acoustic), a tapered sound guide ** Horn antenna ** Horn loudspeaker ** Vehicle horn ** Train horn *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various animals * Horn (instrument), a family ...

. His compositions are characterized by tendency towards free forms,

style Style, or styles may refer to: Film and television * ''Style'' (2001 film), a Hindi film starring Sharman Joshi, Riya Sen, Sahil Khan and Shilpi Mudgal * ''Style'' (2002 film), a Tamil drama film * ''Style'' (2004 film), a Burmese film * '' ...

models of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning c ...

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

harmonies,

Balkan The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

s and highly emphasized

melodic A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term c ...

as a part of instrument nature to which Grgin has dedicated his performing and creative work. Numerous artists who have performed his compositions includes world-renowned names, such as:

Irena Grafenauer Irena Grafenauer (born 19 June 1957 in Ljubljana, Slovenia) is a Slovenian flute player and soloist, a pupil of Boris Čampa, Karlheinz Zöller and Aurèle Nicolet. Irena Grafenauer was born to father Stanko Grafenauer, a geologist, and to mot ...

and Mate Bekavac.

Teaching experience

Grgin is a full professor of

and chair of the Department of Wind Instruments at the Faculty of

Music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

, where he taught from 1995 to 2014, and at the Faculty of Arts in

Niš Niš (; sr-Cyrl, Ниш, ; names of European cities in different languages (M–P)#N, names in other languages), less often spelled in English as Nish, is the list of cities in Serbia, third largest city in Serbia and the administrative cente ...

Awards and honors

As a student, Grgin won the Second Prize at the

Jeunesses Musicales Jeunesses Musicales International (JMI) is a global non-governmental youth music organization founded in Brussels, Belgium, in 1945. Its mission is to "enable young people to develop through music across all boundaries." JMI operates in four pr ...

International Competition in Belgrade (1971) and also had remarkable achievements at various prestigious international open competitions in Geneve,

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

and

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. Later, during his professional career, he got a number of prominent awards, such as: "

Dositej Obradović Dositej Obradović ( sr-Cyrl, Доситеј Обрадовић, ; 17 February 1739 – 7 April 1811) was a Serbian writer, biographer, diarist, philosopher, pedagogue, educational reformer, linguist and the first minister of education of Se ...

" Award, The Recognition Medallion of the City of Belgrade, The Letter of Thanks of the Faculty of Music, Golden Medallion of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of this institution, Silver Medallion of the University of Arts, as well as the Association of Musical Artists of Serbia Award for the Best Concert of the Season. Grgin was a jury member at various competitions.

Affiliations

Grgin is a member of the

Association of Musical Artists of Serbia The Association of Musical Artists of Serbia (Serbian:''Udruženje muzičkih umetnika Srbije'', also known as ''UMUS'') is an association which gathers together musicians from Serbia who dedicated themselves to performing classical music. The g ...

.Members of the Association of Musical Artists of Serbia
Retrieved on February 4, 2012

References

*Blagojevic, Andrija. “''Jeunesses Musicales International Competition'' in Belgrade, Serbia.“ ''The Clarinet'', Vol. 39/4 (September 2012), pp. 78–84. *Blagojevic, Andrija. "Bruno Brun (1910-1978) - Founder of the Yugoslav clarinet school." ''The Clarinet'', Vol. 41/3 (June 2014), pp. 46–51. *Blagojević, Andrija. "The Establishment of the Serbian Clarinet School." ''The Clarinet'', Vol. 51/1 (December 2023), pp. 40–45. *''Jugokoncert: 1946-1971'', ed. by Milena Milanović. Belgrade: Yugoslav concert agency, 1971. *Maksimović, M.(1971): ''Beogradska filharmonija 1951–1971'', Beogradska filharmonija, Beograd *Nikolajević, S. (1994): ''Muzika kao događaj'', Clio, Beograd *''Pedeset godina Fakulteta muzičke umetnosti (Muzičke akademije) 1937–1987'' (1988), Univerzitet umetnosti u Beogradu, Beograd *Yoder, Rachel. “Clarinet Pedagogy Around The World.” The Clarinet 50, no. 4 (September 2023): 57–60.

Notes

External links

Biography in English, French and German
, 2 pp. (PDF file; 289 kB)
Belgrade Philharmonic OrchestraFaculty of Music in BelgradeCompositions by Ante Grgin

Politika ( sr-Cyrl, Политика, lit=Politics) is a Serbian daily newspaper, published in Belgrade. Founded in 1904 by Vladislav F. Ribnikar, it is the oldest daily newspaper still in circulation in the Balkans. Publishing and ownership is publ ...

, December 8, 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:Grgin, Ante Yugoslav musicians Croatian musicians Serbian classical clarinetists Serbian jazz clarinetists 1945 births Living people Academic staff of the University of Arts in Belgrade University of Arts in Belgrade alumni Croatian jazz musicians 21st-century clarinetists