A Music Spectacle to Mark the 40th Anniversary

All music lovers who will join the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall are in for a remarkable programme of events which will take place between December 28th and 30th when top quality musical treats will be organized to mark this remarkable jubilee.

This year, the Day of the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall will be special as it will mark a great jubilee – 40 years since this temple of music and culture first opened its doors to audiences. A special celebration will be organized to mark this important jubilee. It will include a string of top quality musical events. This year, the celebration will not take place only on December 29th as always, but rather, the festivities will stretch for three whole days.

The celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Lisinski Concert Hall will start the day before the anniversary itself, with a concert by the genius pianist Ivo Pogorelić. He will perform a repertoire of works by Vatroslav Lisinski, Frédéric Chopin and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, accompanied by the Symphony Orchestra of Croatian Radio and Television conducted by Ivan Repušić. After the concert, a traditional ball, the favourite end of year event for many citizens of Zagreb, will continue in the lobby of Lisinski Hall. All those who will join this year’s celebration will also enjoy Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, which will be performed on the very Day of the Lisinski Concert Hall. This epic choral spectacular for soloists, a choir, two pianos and percussion instruments will feature soprano Gorana Biondić, tenor Marko Cvetko and baritone Ljubomir Puškarić who will be conducted by Maestro Vladimir Kranjčević  and accompanied by the Ivan Goran Kovačić Academic Choir, Pavica Gvozdić and Vladimir Krpan on the pianos, the Zvjezdice (Little Stars) all girls’ choir and the Sudar percussion ensemble, while Ivana Bilić will join them on timpanos. Once again, after the performance of the most popular modern cantata, visitors will be invited to dance the night away. The third evening of the anniversary celebration traditionally features a Philharmonic Ball with a whirlwind of rhythms and evergreens from the workshop of the Strauss dynasty.

The Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall features a large music hall with 1847 seats and a small auditorium with 304 seats, four meeting rooms, a large lobby which can be used to organize exhibitions and three snack bars. In terms of its aesthetics and acoustics features, the complex is an example of excellent contemporary design while the state of the art audio equipment offers a top quality sound. Due to its multifunctional design, the concert hall complex provides excellent opportunities for the organization of film projections, exhibitions, congresses and other business events. Over the past 40 years, the Lisinski Hall has organized a host of spectacular musical events, hosted the biggest names from the world of classical music and staged a number of varied programmes, and in the process it has become the leader on the national and regional musical and concert scenes and served as the meeting point of Croatian culture and other world cultures. Among the really impressive number of ensembles and soloists who have enriched the cultural life of Zagreb by performing at Lisinski, it suffices to mention guests appearances by the Viennese Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bolshoi Theatre, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Milanese Scala and the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra which were conducted by the greatest conductors of the world. The greatest pop and jazz stars who have performed on the Lisinski stage include Sting, Tina Turner, Nick Cave, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Juliette Greco, Charles Aznavour, Paco de Lucia and many others.

As a reminder, to warm the audiences up for the 40th anniversary celebration, on December 7th and 8th, Lisinski will bring to Zagreb some of the biggest comedians of the day. As part of the international London Calling Comedy Fair – Lisinski is Laughing Festival, featuring stand up comedians, cabaret and pantomime artists and physical theatre, five laugh-your-heads-off events will take place on the concert hall’s stage.

To obtain more information about what is on at the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall in December, go to www.lisinski.hr.