VENI Academy

Daniel Matej

art director

Daniel first studied music theory at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, then also composition (with Ivan Parík and Juraj Beneš). During his studies he also visited Conservatoire National Supérieur de la Musique in Paris. Later he studied composition with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He was at the start of the contemporary music festival Evenings of New Music and is one of the founding members of ensembles such as VENI, Požoň sentimentál, VAPORI del CUORE, apendix CONSORT and VENI ACADEMY.

Ivan Šiller

executive director, keyboard instruments

Ivan studied the piano in Bratislava (VŠMU) and Ghent (Royal Conservatory), and as a scholarship holder in the USA (Tanglewood Music Center), Canada (Banff Centre for the Arts) and Germany (Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt). He focuses on interpretation of contemporary music, ensemble-, solo performances and musical re-interpretations of works of fine arts. He enjoys working with other musicians, together with whom he forms various groups – Cluster ensemble, Ensemble Ricercata or Prague Modern. Besides his employment at the Department of music education at the Faculty Education, Comenius University Bratislava, he co-creates alternative "educational institutions" – such as the student project VENI ACADEMY or the series of workshops for kids SoundOrchestra – aimed at introducing improvised music, graphic scores and exmerimental music. Ivan is the founder of many projects, festival or concert series. He is also the president of International Society for Contemporary Music – Slovak section, which organized the festival ISCM World New Music Days in 2013.

Marián Lejava

conductor

Marián Lejava je jedným zo zakladajúcich členov a dramaturg občianskeho združenia SOOZVUK. Ako dirigent spolupracoval o. i. so Štátnou filharmóniou Košice, Štátnym komorným orchestrom Žilina, Janáčkovou filharmóniou Ostrava, Orchestra lyrique et symphonique de Nancy, Savaria Symphony Orchestra Szombathely, Komorným orchestrom ZOE, so súbormi Melos Ethos Ensemble, VENI ensemble, VENI ACADEMY, Bratislava Convergence Players, Qaartsiluni Ensemble, Ensemble modern Frankfurt a Ensemble Resonance Freiburg.

Lecturers

Fero Király

keyboard instruments

Fero Kiraly graduated from the Music Faculty of Academy of Performing Arts, Bratislava where he studied piano. He is interested in musical projects overlapping performance, sound art, installation, interpretations of contemporary music and musical reinterpretation of visual art. He is also involved in educational projects where he experiments and often tests his own limits by creating own software and collaborating with other artists from different disciplines. He created a series of workshops for children called Soundring in which he uses self-made music instrument Zvukodrom. He is the author of interactive book for music teachers PIANORA that consists of musical and sound games and experimental music. As a chamber player he is a member of various international ensembles (Cluster Ensemble, VENI ensemble, Kiraly & Zabkova, Namestie Republiky, Dirt Ensemble, Urban Hudak and others).

Braňo Dugovič

lecturer, clarinet

Braňo finished his doctoral studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where he was an assistant lecturer in the years 2007–2008. Currently he teaches at the Faculty of Education, Comenius University in Bratislava. He has worked with many Slovak and foreign artists and groups, such as N. Bulffone, M. Valent, E. Šušková, Ostravská banda, Cluster ensemble, VENI ensemble, Melos Ethos Ensemble, orchestras Cappella Istropolitana, Slovak State Philharmonic Košice and others. In Slovakia Braňo premiered many pieces by various composers, domestic and foreign (Danzi, Mendelssohn, Tate, Zeljenka, Kupkovič, Lejava, Iršai...). Braňo’s performing art appears on many recordings for Diskant, Music Fund Slovakia, Naxos and others.

David Danel

violin

Studied violin at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava (Ladislav Gořula) and at the Institute of Art Studies (Zdeněk Gola). He devotes himself to experimental projects combining artistic disciplines and music genres (e.g. performance “Bach” for a dancer, violin player, reciter and light design, project D6 with David Dorůžka and Dan Dlouhý). He is the artistic director of the contemporary music ensemble Prague Modern. Since 2016 he has been the director of the Czech Music Information Centre.

Peter Tornyai