04/07/2025
[RHYTHM-O-PHONIA 2025]
We are excited to share a special welcome message from the Artistic Director and Jury President Igor Lešnik on RHYTHM-O-PHONIA 2025.
We're starting soon - stay tuned!
'104 years of music: through learning, creativity and research... is a more than appropriate motto for the anniversary season 2024/2025 celebrating the new centenary of the Zagreb Academy of Music. The rich line of events we organized during the past six years finishes with nothing less than a loud bang at the end of the mandate - the third edition of the International Percussion Competition RHYTHM-O-PHONIA.
As a percussionist, and the dean of the host institution, I feel privileged that our percussion department once again has such an opportunity for the further promotion of Croatian music on a high international level welcoming competitors and renowned jury members from several continents.
After almost four decades of the existence of the percussion department in Zagreb, there is professionally nothing more rewarding for its founder than to witness how the international concert touring, pedagogical and organizational activities of Croatian percussion soloists and ensembles have built a reputation of our scene that is valued in international professional art and pedagogical circles.
The leading world percussionists regularly visit Croatia and numerous foreigners study percussion here. Many of them have won awards at international competitions, whereby the University of Zagreb Academy of Music confirmed its international reputation as an institution that young musicians from Europe and the world have recognized and are keen to visit to improve their artistic quality, as well as renowned soloists and pedagogues to hold concerts and lectures.
To all of those who have contributed and helped RHYTHM-OPHONIA become a regular triennial event, I would like to express my sincere gratitude. Finally, I wish all of our contestants a successful performance at our Academy’s concert hall and a pleasant stay in Zagreb.'
Igor Lešnik