The 70^th Dubrovnik Summer Festival music programme is in full swing - a performance in the Rector’s Palace atrium by the Croatian Radio-television Choir, under the baton of the Festival’s own Assistant Artistic Director for Music Tomislav Fačini, will start at 9.30pm tomorrow, on Thursday 25 July.

Conductor Tomislav Fačini announces the evening’s programme that smells like love between heaven and earth and writes: “If voice is the most beautiful instrument, Russian Orthodox music the most beautiful choral literature, Sergey Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil the most beautiful liturgical music, and the Rector’s Palace a space with the most beautiful acoustics and atmosphere, then you are in the right place, dear listener! Both Rachmaninov’s magnificent Vigil and the works by Georgy Sviridov, the author who was influenced by Rachmaninov and whom we are just beginning to discover through his beautiful choral pieces – frozen in time and woven from hundreds of shades of white, celebrate the wonder and inexhaustible richness of the human voice.”

Croatian Radio-television Choir was founded in 1941 as a radio choir. Initially a chamber ensemble, over time it transformed into the first big professional choir in Croatia. In the Choir's early years, its repertoire was formed by conductors Mladen Pozajić, Dragan Gürtl and Boris Papandopulo, and later by chief conductors Sergije Rainis, Slavko Zlatić, Vladimir Kranjčević, Igor Kuljerić and Tonči Bilić, whose work and leadership throughout the years has had a major influence on the Choir, while their works continue to form a part of the Choir’s repertoire. Theirs is a varied repertoire, ranging from Renaissance to contemporary music, performed both a cappella and with instrumental accompaniment. Due to this versatility and their musical virtuosity, the choir has appeared across Europe (Rome, Moscow, Salzburg, Milan, Paris, Venice, Berlin, Vienna) and collaborated with a number of the most distinguished conductors of both the 20^th and the 21^st century, including Lovro von Matačić, Milan Horvat, Pavle Dešpalj, Nikša Bareza, Vladimir Kranjčević, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Igor Markevitch, Valery Polyansky, Niels Schweckendiek, Martina Batič, and numerous world-renowned soloists. The Choir won the Milka Trnina Diploma of the Croatian Musicians' Association for outstanding artistic achievements in 2004 for the performance of Boris Papandopulo's Croatian Mass, as well as a number of Porin discography awards. Tomislav Fačini is a professor of choir conducting, chamber music for singers and performing from score at the Zagreb Academy of Music, a regular partner of the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, the chief conductor of the Croatian Radio-television Choir, artistic leader of the Antiphonus Ensemble and Assistant Artistic Director for Music at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. Besides conducting, he composes and arranges music – in December 2018, the Croatian Radio-television released his CD Myrrh, gold, frankincense recorded with the Croatian Radio-television Choir and Instrumental Ensemble, while 2019 saw the release of  the eagerly-awaited album with the Antiphonus Ensemble of the Croatian seicento music Ne le tue braze.

Tickets are available for purchase at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival website www.dubrovnik-festival.hr or via www.ulaznice.hr ticketing service and at the box office of the Festival Palace (Od Sigurate 1) every day from 9am to 9.30pm. All residents of Dubrovnik-neretva county are offered a 30% discount on all tickets. Purchases made with Mastercard® and Maestro® cards receive a 10% discount while all purchases and orders over 500 kuna receive a 30% discount voucher for Festival souvenirs.