EARLY MUSIC (EM) and LIRAS,

1969 - today

From the very beginning, playing the renaissance and early baroque music, I started to experiment with various ornaments, consulting of course the works of Ganassi, Ortiz, Bassano, Virgiliano and Dalla Casa; my improvisations have been never written down.

In the case of medieval music, playing dances with my Croatian ensembles ("Universitas Studiorum Zagrabiensis" and "F. Grisogono") or with the French ensemble "G. de Machaut", I started to invent my improvised variations departing from ornaments.

But the significant development was achieved during my 20 years of collaboration with Austrian Early Music ensemble "Clemencic Consort" from Vienna (1983 - 2004).

In many of their programs for medieval music such as "Asinaria Festa", "Cantigas", "Carmina Burana", "Mass of the G. de Machaut", etc., beside frequent use of ornaments, every instrumentalist of this ensemble had at least one bigger improvised solo. Here, for many years, my solos would alternate with those of other American, Austrian, French, Greek, Hungarian, Iranian, Italian or Swiss music colleagues.

My intense occupation with both Liras since 1981 led to my profound and interesting experience on the field of Early Music improvisation: it happened while working on my project for Vienna University of Music (1996 - 2001) and increased through my collaborating with Italian ensemble "Micrologus" and the numerous experiments with dances of the late 15th and frottolas of the early 16th centuries.