The Honorary Citizen of Ljubljana Prof Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak and the General and Artistic Director of the Ljubljana Festival Darko Brlek received high state recognitions on 4 July 2018.

Golden Order of Merits for Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak

Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak received the Golden Order of merits for her life work and outstanding opus in the field of Slovenian and global musical reproduction.

Quote from the justification: »A pianist of heavenly vision and heroic strength. These are two of numerous expressions of enthusiasm music art connoisseurs used to describe the perfection of the power of expression of pianist Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak. She was a child prodigy. She showed immense talent during a performance as just a five-year old girl. When she was seventeen she graduated from the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York and was chosen as the biggest musical talent in USA at a national competition. Her debut was at the famous Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, she continued to study under the legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein and carefully developed her gift. Her successes were numerus. Her rich piano career took her to all most important musical metropolises. She worked with most reputed orchestras in the world, famous conductors and musicians, and captivated classical music aficionados everywhere. She has received numerous awards and recognitions. At the age of thirty-five she received the Prešeren Award with an already thirty-year long career behind her. She is also very proud of the golden medal she received at the Mozart Competition in Brussels in 1967.

Her opus is outstanding. In total, she performed over five thousand individual recitals and concerts, and had as many standing ovations. But she never forgot Slovenian composers and she loved to present them to the global public. She also recorded a lot. She recorded over 90 compact disks with the biggest global record houses. Her recordings with over hundred titles of fundamental works in piano literature, recorded for the Slovenian national radio, are priceless for Slovenian culture.

As a professor at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana she has brought up many generations of reputed Slovenian pianists and pedagogues, and has significantly contributed to the development of Slovenian piano music and musical reproduction.

The honorary professor Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak is one of the most successful music reproducers on Slovenian, European and global level. She is one of the biggest Slovenian artists and an outstanding ambassador of Slovenian musical reproduction. Her name is going to be forever spelled in capital letters in Slovenian and global musical history.«

Darko Brlek received the Order of Merits

For over 25 years Darko Brlek has been successfully managing the oldest festival in Slovenia and the biggest in the region with his heightened artistic sense, outstanding knowledge and a good deal of perseverance. As it is stated in the justification, »his successes have fundamentally co-created the high quality cultural and artistic life in Slovenia, and have significantly contributed to its reputation on the international stage.«

After a few years under the leadership of Darko Brlek the Ljubljana Festival could be compared to the biggest and most important European festivals, and in the last 25 years it hosted numerous best known artists in the world.

Darko Brlek has introduced many novelties at the Ljubljana Festival, he has deepened the cooperation with the European Festivals Association, which he successfully led for 12 years as president, and he has considerably raised the number of events and visitors.