BOŠTJAN GOMBAČ & EDUARDO RAON

Boštjan Gombač: duduk, reconstruction of the oldest musical instrument in the world, clarinet, bass clarinet, melodica, whistle, lyra, pocket trumpet, krilovka, bodhran, voice, and sounds

Eduardo Raon: harp and electronics

This time, the Gombač-Raon project will be much more than the art of two musicians on two musical instruments. As artists, they are undoubtedly "special" among classically educated musicians, as their restless creative spirit constantly pushes them into new challenges, new projects, and above all, new soundscapes and worlds. This kind of sphere will surely be followed by a surprising musical experience: the two creators will perform their original compositions at the concert, in which the music they created for the film and the theatre is interwoven with improvisation. Their performance can be described as a film with long frames, which takes the audience from the melancholic sounds of the Armenian duduk through the reconstruction of the oldest musical instrument to the sounds of nature, birds, and the wind as they walk through soundscapes with harp, electronics, various musical instruments and sounds.

Boštjan Gombač is a well-known Slovenian multi-instrumentalist and composer of music for theatre, film, and television, and he is no stranger to the stage. Even while studying clarinet under the mentorship of Prof. Jože Kotar at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, he was fascinated by various musical genres. As a teenager, his musical journey took him around the world and opened up new horizons in musical expression. His work over the past twenty-five years can be found on approximately 150 sound carriers and covers everything from ethno to serious music. He created music for 50 theatre plays, 40 documentaries, and a radio play. He is a master of wind instruments such as clarinet, tin pipes, and the ocarina; he also plays the singing saw, bodhran, and theremin, as well as a variety of other unusual instruments and sounds that are rarely seen on concert stages. With the band Terra Folk, he won many music awards and recognitions, including the BBC3 Radio Audience Award (World Music Awards), and he collaborates with the groups Katalena, Bast, Bachology Quartet, and Los Hermanos Muy Simpaticos. He has already performed with a lot of well-known artists in Slovenian popular and classical music and with many foreign musicians, such as Neil Innes, Tommy Emmanuel, The Cat Empire, John McSherry, Arvid Engegard, Susanne Lundeng, Knut Eric Sundquist, Marc Ribot, Greg Cohen, Theodossi Spassov, and Josipa Lisac.

Eduardo Raon is a classically trained Portuguese harpist, composer, and sound designer who lives in Ljubljana. In addition to international engagement, he also works in Slovenia. He creates contemporary and improvised music, playing a kaleidoscope of ethno, noise, pop, retro, rock, ambient, and electronic music. He collaborated with musicians and bands: I-Wolf, Powertrio, Turbamulta, Maria João & Mário Laginha, Bypass, Ela Não É Francesa, Ele Não É Espanhol, Hipnótica, O Espectáculo d'Ontem, Bratko Bibič, Vid Drašler, Goran Krmac Quartet, and Toma Grom. He creates music for many theatre plays and performances. He is intensively active in the field of film music, where he has composed and performed a number of musical accompaniments for films, especially in the Slovenian Cinematheque, such as Entusiazem, Donbas Symphony (Dziga Vertov), Metropolis (Fritz Lang), Die Puppe (Ernst Lubitsch), etc. With Bratko Bibič and Vid Drašler, he co-created the music for Bibič's film Na domačem vrtu  3.

The two musicians met eleven years ago, and they performed together for the first time in 2021 as part of the Solo - Duo - Solo concert series in the Gallus hall of Cankarjev Dom. In addition to a large number of concerts, both have written and recorded music for numerous theatre and dance performances, documentaries, animated and feature films, and radio plays in the last two decades. Their work can be heard on more than 200 sound carriers.

Photo: Peter Uhan (Boštjan Gombač)