Sunday 23 November 2014

Dubravko Detoni, Acezantez, Branimir Sakać ‎- Dubravko Detoni, Acezantez, Branimir Sakać (Croatia Records, Muzički Biennale Zagreb, HRT - Hrvatska Radiotelevizija, CD, 1997)



ACEZANTEZ - the ensemble was founded in 1970 by the versatile Croatian composer and instrumentalist Dubravko Detoni, who desired to perform and promote contemporary and rearranged classical music from Croatian authors. Several multimedia artists gathered in an attempt to create something that would not represent just music, just theatre or just a group of art mobiles and a light in time. The artistic mold is a combination of these elements. In its constant search for the new ways of expression, ACEZANTEZ (Ensemble of Centre for the New Tendencies) is also working with many Croatian and foreign authors.

Dubravko Detoni has studied contemporary music with more or less crucial figures of the classical avant-garde such as John Cage in Paris, Witold Lutosławski in Warsaw, Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti in Darmstadt, Alfred Cortot and Guido Agosti in Siena.

He has created 130 chamber, symphonic, solo and electronic compositions, as well as a number of projects;
 his works have been performed around the globe, at major festivals worldwide, recorded in Croatia and abroad and, 
at last, released on 46 recordings.


Branimir Sakač (1918–1979) ended the study of composition in 1941. in Zagreb. He was a conductor and continued as a teacher at the High School of Music Academy, then worked as a music editor at Radio Zagreb, director of the Yugoslav Music Festival in Opatija, within which he founded Music Information Centre etc. He was an associate and later artistic director of the Zagreb music Biennale. In 1965 he founded the experimental group FONAT with whom he performed in 1967 at the Music Biennale Zagreb, presenting the results of their own research of complex musical expression of sound, light, movement and space, which he called "phonoplastic".
Sakač, as an artist of wide interests, successfully dealt with a variety of musical areas of orchestral, chamber, piano and vocal to stage and film music.
Sakač wrote the very first electronic piece in former Yugoslavia in 1959 - "Tri Sintetske Poeme" ("Three Synthetic Poems"), which has never been released and he is considered as one of the most rewarding contemporary Croatian composers and conductors of the 20th century.




Musicians on this album: 
Giovanni Cavallin - wind-instruments, vocal 
Dubravko Detoni - piano 
Fred Došek - electric piano, vocal 
Vernika Durbešić - vocal 
Zlatko Tanodi - synthesizer 
Bonnie Lynn-Adelson - percussion, vocal 
Ozren Depolo - wind-instruments, vocal 
Darko Domitrović - keyboards 
Boris Benini - percussion 
Daniel Thune - wind-instruments, strings 
Ratko Vojtek - wind-instruments, percussion

The recordings are originated in the 70's and the 80's.

I am keen to mention that Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapelton, Steve and Alan Freeman (Alto Stratus) are colossal devotees of Dubravko Detonis musical opus. Stapelton even did the cover lettering for Dubravko Detoni With Acezantez cd-compilation of tracks previously released on Jugoton (today's Croatia Records).

4 comments:

  1. Wow, this is amazing - I am a big fan of Eastern Bloc era electronic/experimental music, so it is always great to come across something new and interesting (especially finding out that Steve Stapleton is a fan!).

    So Jugoton became 'Croatia Records'! So in the NATO carve up of the former Yugoslavia, Croatia got their hands on the state record company! I think the other state label was PGB or something similar, it would be interesting to know if that was Belgrade based and whether it is now in Serbian hands.

    Many thanks for this.

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  3. Yes, Croatia got their hands on Yugoslavian-state-owned, Zagreb-based "Jugoton", and Serbia on Yugoslavian-state-owned, Belgrade based "PGP-RTB" (Production of Gramophone Records – Radio-Television Belgrade). There's a famous Yugoslavian rock musician living in Netherlands now, Branimir Johnny Štulić, who is suing ex-"Jugoton" "Croatia Records" for boucoup money because they've been capitalizing out of contract on his prior work with Jugoton.

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