Helena Skljarov (Zagreb, January 1993) graduated musicology at Music Academy, University of Zagreb (2017), under the mentorship of Nikša Gligo with a thesis on the analysis of 20th-century music. In 2014. she begins the study of Composition at the same university in the class of professor Berislav Šipuš. In 2018. she won a scholarship from the Croatian Composers Society “Rudolf and Margita Matz”. In 2018. she received the Rector’s award for composition Pulsar which was premiered in Zagreb by students orchestra and conducted by maestro Quentin Hindley. Since she was a student, she participated in various masterclasses. In June 2020 she participated with her string quartet Silence as a composer in residency of Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. From autumn 2019 she lived and studied in Lyon as an ERASMUS student in the class of professor Martin Matalon. In July 2020 she graduated composition under the mentorship of Berislav Šipuš with her opera Nothing. Almost for vocals, instruments, and electronics, written on the texts of Daniil Kharms. In 2021 her string quartet Silence is selected for the 2021 ISCM World New Music Days in Shanghai and Nanjing. In 2022, she was selected to participate in the Novalis Festival where she won the award for best composition of a young composer. In the same year, she was composer-in-residence at the Ljubljana Festival as part of the Synergy project and part of the Hong Kong Contemporary Music Festival. In November 2022. she had her first multimedia exhibition at Music-Mission-Vision festival in Zagreb. Her work currently includes more than 50 compositions for various solo instruments, chamber ensembles, one symphony, and two operas. She is particularly interested in music theatre and interdisciplinary art. Since 2023, she has been an associate and Assistant Professor at the Department of Composition at the Academy of Music, University of Zagreb. As a musicologist, since 2017 she writes music critics and analyses of contemporary compositions and has currently more than 50 published articles. In 2023 founded Serious Ensemble Zagreb. 2024 she was selected as a member of the Program Committee for the Cantus Ensemble, led by Berislav Šipuš at the Croatian Composers’ Society, for the period of 2025-2027. A significant premiere in 2023 was her symphony “Portrait Dore P.” for orchestra, video, and electronics, conducted by Maestro Pascal Rophé, commissioned by the HRT orchestra to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Dora Pejačević’s death. In 2025, the symphony was selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) to be performed at the World New Music Days in Portugal.
photo: Duško Miljanić
In short…
Graduated: Musicology (analysis of 20th century music) in 2017 and Composition (opera) in 2020
Artistic director of Serious Ensemble Zagreb, ensemble for new music
Composition: graduated in Zagreb Conservatoire, ERASMUS program in CNSMD Lyon, currently more than 50 compositios
Current projects and interests: staged compositions, Sound art, fusion of painting and composing
Musicology: since 2017 more than 50 published articles (reviews and analyses of contemporary compositions)
Photo: @matija.jimi
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Composition thesis (2020)
Opera Nothing… Almost, Images for vocals, instruments, and electronics. Written on different stories of Daniil Kharms which are in a way connected by its absurd situations. The main idea was to capture Kharms’s absurd humor and try to transfer it into music. In its duration of approx. 40 minutes there are presented different conflicts between four main characters (S, A, T and B) which are changed during the piece. Dramaturgy helps two actors who sometimes comment the action on the stage or simply ‘explain’ them by reading stage directions.
Musicology thesis (2017)
Analysis of Schönberg’s Erwartung entitled ‘Schönberg’s Erwartung as beginning of atonality’. My biggest interest in the field of Musicology is music analysis, especially of 20th and 21st-century music. My mentor, Nikša Gligo, suggested me to write an extensive analysis of Schönberg’s Erwartung since it’s a challenge because there are very few attempts of analysis of this piece. Furthermore, the approach towards it is absolutely new and it requires inventing a new system of analysis as much as most musical pieces (especially the ones written in free atonality) composed after it.
List of critics and articles available online (in Croatian):
Serious Ensemble Zagreb
Serious Ensemble Zagreb is a newly established ensemble, founded by Helena Skljarov. The ensemble focuses on premieres, collective improvisation, and the fusion of visual and dramatic arts. Its members are young graduate musicians and enthusiasts of contemporary music.
The main idea behind the ensemble is to experiment with the concept of a concert as a social event. In this sense, the performances allude to earlier forms of performance that existed before the 19th century. Sometimes, there is a greater emphasis on the audience and the social event itself, rather than solely on the music. The aim is to break down the imaginary boundary and distance between the performers and the audience, while highlighting contemporary conceptual ideas based on themes that resonate with the modern individual. The music created by the ensemble is accessible to a wider audience and avoids being incomprehensible. The ensemble’s goal is to bring contemporary music closer to a broader audience and integrate it with modern lifestyles by merging concerts with everyday experiences.
Photo: @matija.jimi
