For the seventh consecutive year, the Winter Festival will enrich winter cultural events with six concerts held between 18 and 23 February 2024. Renowned domestic and foreign musicians will perform on the stage of the cultural and congress centre Cankarjev dom and the Slovenian Philharmonic, and you are invited to join us for an unforgettable cultural experience.

The festival will open on 18 February in Cankarjev dom with the performace of soprano Sophie Marin-Degor, mezzo-soprano Annalise Stroppa, tenor Celso Albelo, baritone Paul Armin Edelmann and pianist Kai-Min Chang, winner of the fist Ljubljana Festival International Piano Competition in 2023. The soloists will be accompanied by the Symphony Orchestra RTV Slovenia, Mixed Choir of the Glasbena Matica Ljubljana, Festival Choir Virtuosi and Chamber Choir of the Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana under the baton of maestro Yan Pascal Tortelier. We will listen to Concerto for Piano and Orchestra no. 2 in B flat major by Johannes Brahms, Psalm 24 »The Earth is the Lord's« by Lili Boulanger, and Requiem by Camillo Saint Saëns.

The next day, on 19 February, soprano Olga Kulčinska, mezzo-soprano Gaëlle Arquez, tenor Francesco Demuro and baritone Riccardo Zanellato will perform in Cankarjev dom, accompanied by the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Megaron Chamber Choir, conducted by the excellent Italian conductor Roberto Abbado. The latter led the performance of Verdi's Requiem at the 70th anniversary of the Ljubljana Festival.

Three concert evenings will follow in the Slovenian Philharmonic. On 20 February, the programme features pianist Olga Kern, one of the greatest artists of her generation. The following evening, 21 February, Ensemble Dissonance led by Miguel Á. Navarro will be joined on stage by trumpet player Vicente Campos and singer Lidia Rodriguez. On 22 February, we will listen to violinist Maksim Vengerov, who can boast of an impressive series of over 3,000 concerts, and pianist Vag Papian.

On 23 February, the Slovenian Youth Orchestra, under the direction of conductor Živa Ploj Peršuh, will conclude the Winter Festival with the works of three masters from the treasury of classical works, Variations on a Theme of Haydn by Johannes Brahms, Symphony No. 3, better known as »Eroica«, by Ludwig van Beethoven, and Henryk Wieniawski's First Violin Concerto. Rok Zaletel Černoš, who in 2023 was the first Slovenian violinist to participate in the prestigious P. I. Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow, will perform a solo.

More information is available on the Ljubljana Festival website.