Urška Pompe

Urška POMPE graduated in composition from the Ljubljana Music Academy and continued her post-graduate studies in Budapest (composition, chamber music and solfege) and Basel (composition). She furthered her training at numerous masterclasses with highly regarded mentors, among which the most influential were the composers György Kurtág, Brian Ferneyhough and Jonathan Harvey, and pianist Pierre Laurent Aimard. In 2007 she was awarded the Prešeren Fund Prize, one of Slovenia’s highest honors in the arts. Her music has been performed on international and national stages. In 2018 she was chosen for the Composers Field Trip, China 2018 project, which resulted in a commission for the Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra in Beijing. She has been a professor at the Ljubljana Academy of Music since 1997.

“Her body of work may not be extensive and her pieces may not use many notes, yet the compositions themselves and their acoustic phenomena are polished creations. Often inspired by poetry, her music uses limited means to create a fragile but meaningful tension that touches us, just as poetry can powerfully shake us with just a few syllables and words. Her often quiet, translucent music is composed of miniature gestures, filigree moments, surrounded in a nurturing acoustic space. That is why we most often hear of her as the composer of works for smaller chamber ensembles and for solo instruments. A similar way of linking colors and creating tension between small nuances can also be found among her rare works for orchestra such as near and Šir, which fuse the sounds of one or two saxophones and orchestra.”

– musicologist Primož Trdan