September 25, 2019 – Varaždin has a rich musical tradition, and it also produces some rather unusual firsts on occasion, such as piano teacher Janja Knapić’s recent trip to Iran.
A lovely little story from a recent meeting I had in Varaždin, retold by the person who told me about it.
Janja Knapić, a piano teacher at The Varaždin School of Music wrote a part of cultural history of Iran this July. It’s a bit unusual for this distant and mysterious country to have women conduct their choirs, let alone a foreign woman.
This versatile musician coached members of the mixed Tonal choir from Tehran to perform Croatian compositions that the audience enjoyed at a concert that took place on July 18th and 19th in Roudaki Hall, Tehran. It has undoubtedly been a challenge for Janja, who otherwise conducts multiple vocal groups in her homeland.
She leads the Academic choir of FOI University, Varaždin whose members she claims to be exceptionally proud of, since they are progressing nicely. There’s also her unique project called “Vocal Popular Music Ensemble of the Varaždin School of Music”, that she was even able to turn into a school subject. The ensemble gets quite admirable results as well.
To date, she contributed to two international “Ars choralis” courseology symposia in Zagreb, organized by the Croatian Choral Directors Association, where she was able to meet many colleague lecturers. It was right there that she met Iranian maestro – Milad Omranloo, with whom she realized a collaboration this year. Omranloo liked the way she worked with choirs, and since his Tonal choir needed professional assistance, they mutually agreed on holding a concert in Iran.
Knapić had this idea that it would be interesting if the Iranian audience was presented with Croatian music and its’ composers, so a part of her program was based on that idea. Her tasks in Tehran were first and foremost rehearsals with Tonal Choir, and she had that privilege to conduct half of the concert’s repertoire. She recorded pronunciation of the words that she shared with the choir members, and they quickly got the hang of them.
Apart from the choir rehearsals, at the host’s request she held some master classes as a vocal coach.After the group vocal master class, there was a lot of interest for individual singing and piano playing master class. In the end, it came to even 18 individual class attendees.Upon her arrival to Iran, she was also invited by the Croatian Embassy in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was followed by a meeting at the Embassy, whose personnel dearly accepted the invitation to concert.
Among other compositions, there are two worth mentioning: “Letovanić” and “Moja diridika” that utilize unique folklore way of singing, otherwise unused in Iranian choir singing.
