Ernst Kovacic
Ernst Kovacic was born in 1943 in Kapfenberg (Styria) in Austria. He studied violin, piano, organ and composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. As a violinist, his performances of Bach’s solo works, Mozart’s violin concertos and his commitment to contemporary music soon earned him a prominent place among the soloists of his generation. Many composers such as Ernst Krenek, Friedrich Cerha, Heinz-Karl Gruber, Ivan Eröd, Georg-Friedrich Haas, Beat Furrer, Django Bates, Nigel Osborne, Clemens Gadenstätter and Gérman Toro Pérez wrote works for him. He has performed with numerous orchestras, including the Northern Sinfonia, the English Symphony Orchestra, the Britten Sinfonia, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Klangforum Wien, the Ensemble Modern, the Camerata Salzburg, the Wellington Symphony Orchestra and Tonkünstler Orchestra.
From 1996 to 1998, he worked as chief conductor and artistic director of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. From January 2007 to June 2014, he was artistic director of the Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra in Wroclaw, Poland. He played with this orchestra at several European festivals. The ensemble has performed works by Ernst Krenek, Ludwig van Beethoven, Witold Lutosławski, Hanna Kulenty, Leoš Janáček and Alban Berg. In 2016, Kovacic was Artist in Residence at the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau and con anima Festival in Lower Austria.
In addition to his solistic activities, Ernst Kovacic, violist Steve Dann (Toronto) and cellist Anssi Karttunen (Paris) have been performing under the name Zebra Trio since 2008. In addition to the traditional repertoire, they are particularly dedicated to inspiring new works for their genre. Ernst Kovacic teaches at the Vienna University of Music and leads master classes and seminars. In 1998 he and Beat Furrer founded the Impuls seminars for composers and performers of New Music in Graz, which take place every two years. He implements his programme ideas as curator of several festivals and concert cycles. Among other things, he oversaw the successful series Crossing Mozart and Crossing Haydn at the Vienna Musikverein. Since 2009, he has been artistic director of the festivals Brücken in Styria and LEO in Wrocław. He has also been closely involved in the development of the Ernst Krenek Institute Private Foundation in Krems (Austria) as Chairman of the Board since 2002.
