Kuljerić, Ivana

Ivana Kuljerić is an internationally acclaimed marimba virtuoso and versatile percussionist.

A graduate of Professor I. Lešnik’s class, she is currently a full professor at the Music Academy in Zagreb and, as of autumn 2025, serves as Vice Dean for Teaching. In the 2024/25 academic year, she is engaged as Professor of Marimba and Percussion at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA.

In the same year, she was appointed Artistic Director of one of Croatia’s longest-running classical music festivals, Glazbene večeri u sv. Donatu (Musical Evenings at St. Donatus).

She regularly performs with European orchestras, including the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Witold Lutosławski Philharmonic, Pannon Philharmonic, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Presidential Symphony Orchestra and the Croatian Radiotelevision Symphony Orchestra, among others. She has also appeared at international festivals such as Music Biennale Zagreb, Musicora, Tempus Fugit Festival, Melos Ethos, Dubrovačke ljetne igre, Splitsko ljeto and Julian Rachlin and Friends.

Ivana gives masterclasses at leading institutions including the Manhattan School of Music, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart, Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, conservatories in Paris and Lyon, universities in Wuhan, Dalian, Shenyang and Beijing, the Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the Salzburg Summer Academy, and others.

She also participates in percussion and marimba festivals such as Tomarimbando, Shenyang Percussion Festival, KALIMA, Tenerife Percussion Festival, Amsterdam Marimba Weekend, Santa Fe Marimba Festival, Marimba International Festival and Conference, ZMF, PASIC, Belgium Marimba Competition and Festival and Festival de Marimbistas, among many others.

She frequently serves as a jury member at international marimba and percussion competitions (marimba competitions in Linz, Salzburg, Stuttgart and Paris; the August Everding Competition in Munich; percussion competitions in Timișoara and Beijing, etc.).

Ivana takes part in chamber, stage and crossover productions across Europe, South America, China and the USA, appearing in halls such as Merkin Hall, Palacio de Bellas Artes and the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.

She collaborates intensively with the Music Tribune, where she leads contemporary music workshops for students and develops original artistic projects. She is also a member of the international contemporary music ensemble Synchronos.

In 2021, she founded The Percussion Club ensemble, opening the Dubrovačke ljetne igre. In 2023, the ensemble toured the United States.

Since 2014, Ivana has performed regularly with Nikola Krbanyevitch in the I.N.K. Experiment Duo, appearing at festivals throughout Europe, the USA and Asia. In Croatia, their performances at the Dubrovačke ljetne igre (2018) and Music Biennale Zagreb (2021) received particular acclaim. In collaboration with the group Chui, they won a Porin Award in 2020 for Best Instrumental Performance (outside classical and jazz). In 2022, the duo released the CD Collage Part I on Nota Bene Records.

In 2008, as festival artistic director, she founded IBMW (Ivana Bilić Marimba Week), which for years operated within the Samoborske glazbene jeseni. Since 2019, the festival has become independent under the name ISPF (Ivana Summer Percussion Festival), hosting some of today’s most prominent international percussion artists from classical, jazz, world music and rock.

For many years, Ivana has served as solo timpanist of the Croatian Radiotelevision Symphony Orchestra. She is the recipient of Croatia’s most prestigious performance and recording awards — the Milka Trnina Award, the Ivo Vuljević Award and three Porin Awards for Best Performance.

She is the author of compositions and arrangements published by Edition Svitzer, Malletworks, Inkoplastika and Cantus.

Ivana is a Marimba One artist with her own signature line of mallets.

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Photo (c) Matej Grgić