Helena Skljarov, Artistic Director

Helena Skljarov (Zagreb, 1993) graduated in musicology from the Music Academy of the University of Zagreb in 2017 with a thesis on the analysis of 20th-century music. She completed her composition Master studies in 2020 under the mentorship of Professor Berislav Šipuš with her opera Nothing. Almost for voices, orchestra, and electronics. As part of the Erasmus program, she studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon in 2019/2020 under the mentorship of professor Martin Matalon. She has received numerous awards still as a student, including the Rector’s Award for her composition Pulsar, premiered in Zagreb in 2019. In June 2020, she was selected as a resident composer at the Aix-en-Provence festival, where she attended masterclasses with Garth Knox and Kaija Saariaho. In 2021, her string quartet Silence was elected by International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) to be performed at the World New Music Days in China. In 2022, she participated in the Novalis festival, winning the award for the best work by a young composer for her trio Nostos. In November 2022, she held her first solo multimedia exhibition at the Music-Mission-Vision festival in Zagreb, where she presented her multimedia works and performance recordings. A significant premiere in 2023 was her symphony “Portrait Dore P.” for orchestra, video, and electronics, conducted by Maestro Pascal Rophé, commissioned by the HRT orchestra to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Dora Pejačević’s death. In 2025, the symphony was selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) to be performed at the World New Music Days in Portugal. In 2023, she founded the Serious Ensemble Zagreb, of which she is the artistic director. 2024 she was selected as a member of the Program Committee for the Cantus Ensemble, led by Berislav Šipuš at the Croatian Composers’ Society, for the period of 2025-2027. Helena has over fifty compositions, and she currently explores interdisciplinary art, performance art, and the intersection of visual and musical arts. As a musicologist, she has published over fifty critical and analytical texts on contemporary music and regularly contributes to concert reviews and score analyses.