We are presenting the recipients of the Župančič Awards for 2025, the highest recognitions of the City of Ljubljana for outstanding creations in the field of art, which permanently enrich the cultural treasury of Ljubljana and resonate with their exceptionality in the wider international space.

Conductor and pedagogue Uroš Lajovic will receive the Župančič Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025

Uroš Lajovic is one of the most prominent figures in Slovenian musical art of the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. In his exceptional career spanning over fifty years, Maestro Lajovic has worked as a conductor with the most prominent Slovenian and foreign orchestras, including many years as a permanent guest conductor of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, chief conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, and guest conductor in Zagreb, Sofia, Shenzhen, Odense and elsewhere. He founded the Slovenicum Chamber Orchestra, with which he significantly contributed to the international recognition of Slovenian classical music and contemporary composers. With concerts in Europe, Asia and America, he has taken the name of Ljubljana and Slovenia to the world as an artistic ambassador. His concert history so far records over 1400 performances in Slovenia and abroad. His pedagogical work is also exceptional. As a professor of conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, he raised a generation of internationally renowned conductors, including Kirill Petrenko, chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and Andres Orozco-Estrada, chief conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra. In doing so, he significantly contributed to the reputation of Slovenian music pedagogy in the world. An important part of his oeuvre also includes scientific and editorial work: from revisions of scores by Slovenian composers (Janez Krstnik Dolar, Marij Kogoj) to monographs on Beethoven and Mahler, which represent an exceptional contribution to the understanding of the symphonic repertoire. Lajovic is also the author of a translation of the original poems from Boethius' »The Consolation of Philosophy«, which shows his breadth and interest in the connections between art, thought and language. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work, including two Prešeren Student Awards, the Prešeren Fund Award, second prize at the »Guido Cantelli« International Conducting Competition in Milan, the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, the Ljubljana City Council's recognition for culture, and the appointment as Honorary Conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra on its centenary.

The Župančič Two-Year Creativity Awards (2023-2025) will be awarded to:

• film director and screenwriter Maja Doroteja Prelog

Film director and screenwriter Maja Doroteja Prelog received the Župančič Award for her feature-length documentary Cent’anni (2024), which shook the Slovenian and international film scene with its boldness and expressive depth. The film, which was created as a story about recovering from a serious illness, gradually transforms into a personal and painful self-reflection on the breakdown of a partnership. With a camera that turns to her own vulnerability without embellishment, she creates a rare honest, poetic and thematically complex work that transcends the boundaries of the genre and opens up space for deep reflection on love, identity, care and the limits of self-forgetfulness. Cent’anni has won numerous awards, including Vesna Awards for editing and special achievements, the FIPRESCI Award, the Audience Award in Trieste and the Special Award for Promoting Gender Equality at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Maja Doroteja Prelog also received the Štiglic View Award from the Directors Guild of Slovenia for Outstanding Direction. In the past, she also established herself as an author of experimental films and co-founder of the intermedia collective RA.

• writer and translator Suzana Tratnik

For several decades, Suzana Tratnik has been significantly shaping the cultural landscape of Ljubljana as an author, mentor, editor, translator and activist, convincingly combining artistic perfection with social sensitivity in her work. In the last two-year period, she has published a short prose collection Scissors (Škuc, 2023), which, with strong, unpredictable and multifaceted protagonists, continues her exploration of human identity, interpersonal relationships and invisible social mechanisms that mark individuals. Suzana Tratnik has organized and moderated LGBTQ prose and poetry evenings for eighteen years, is a selector of the LGBT Film Festival and an active co-creator of Škuc's LGBTQ archive. She also participated in the international project Slavic Soundwalking, within the framework of which literary content was also accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing through a geolocation-supported mobile application, in three capitals – Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade. Her editorial work and commitment to cultural accessibility prove that for Suzana Tratnik, art is never just a purpose, but also a space of solidarity, inclusion and reflection.

• actor Blaž Šef

Blaž Šef, a member of the Mladinsko Theatre ensemble, has created a series of exceptional artistic achievements in the last two years, which stand out both in terms of interpretative depth and expressive diversity. During the period covered by the award, Blaž Šef participated in numerous domestic and international productions, including the performances People, Places and Things, Saint Joan of the Stockyards, 1974, The Flock, The Dying God Triglav and the theatrical essay On Rumours. His artistic range extends from precise psychological characterization and stylistically virtuosic multilingual play to the author's co-creation of performances and masterful vocal interpretation. In addition to his theatrical achievements, his work with young artists in the Mlado Mladinsko 2 project, cooperation in dubbing, radio projects and vocal mastery, which he enthusiastically presented in his performance of Zappa's masterpiece The Adventures of Greggery Peccary at the Ljubljana Festival, also stand out.