Zoran Ščekić | Lecture
Zoran Šćekić received his BFA in Jazz Guitar at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (Austria). As a recipient of the Bruxelles Stipendium in 1998, he went to Helsinki and to Vienna where he completed his MA in Jazz Theory, Composition and Arrangement and participate at the International Summit of Music Academies as a representative of the Sibelius Music Academia.
His works as a composer, arranger and guitarist in the field of written and improvised music are available on several official and unofficial studio and live recorded CD albums as a result of playing jazz guitar in duo, trio and quartet, collaborating with light and stage designers, choreographers and visual artists in the creation of theatre and film music, participating in jazz and free jazz festivals, music biennials, writing scores in standard, graphic and hybrid notation for different orchestras (jazz orchestra, chamber orchestra, symphony orchestra, choir, tambura orchestra etc.) and working with some international names such as Miroslav Vitouš, Pascal Rophe, Chriss Jarrett, Michael Abenne, Bill Dobbins, Bob Brookmeyer, Jon Irabagon etc.
Within his microtonal work, Zoran Šćekić had composition premiers in European capitals, seminars on micro tonal harmony based on his book Five Limit Intervals – Theory & Praxis and presentations of a microtonal keyboard prototype (Z-board) built in San Diego after his construction. He authored the multimedia project Panmonism premiered in Concert Hall Vatroslav Lisinski in Zagreb during spring 2015. The project consisted of a concert with original compositions for piano in five limit Just intonation, an animated movie about the connection between mathematics and music, a lecture on Just intonation harmony and exhibition of a harmonograph prototype (Lira Spectrum) built in Bari, Italy after his construction. The Lira Spectrum is now permanently exhibited at the Museum of Nikola Tesla in Zagreb, Croatia. As the winner of the Croatian Composer Society competition International 2015, he released in cooperation with USA Ravello Recordings and NAXOS “Just music” his first CD album of microtonal pieces written for solo piano in Just intonation, which was one of the 15 CD albums on Grammy-awarded winner John Schneider’s list The Best of 2015, next to Harry Partch, Essa Pekka Salonen, Wynton Marsalis and Brad Mehldau. He is the leader of the project Adria Microtonalis, established in May 2016, to initiate the first microtonal analysis of a Croatian traditional intonation system from the north Adriatic region, protected as UNESCO cultural heritage.
He is also one of the founders and chairperson of the Croatian Association of Microtonal Art dedicated to promotion, development and advancing traditional and contemporary microtonal music; to initiate and promote systematic and detailed research and promotion of traditional microtonal systems as an important part of cultural heritage; to compose and to interpret within microtonal systems as one of the key directions of further development of music in general; and to promote an objective connection between science and art.