Mate Bekavac
Instead of a biography
Art happens or doesn't happen, independent of biographical records.
11
September, 19:30
Slavic umami
I am interested in what is barely perceived and heard, what is mostly not visible, what happens inside, beyond the glitter and media hype. I am obsessed with the power of listening, seeing, connecting and responding, which I did not learn at any educational institution, although I studied at the most elite and trained with the illustrious. Like many others, I went through a process of idealization and idol-making, imitation and countless repetitions, rebellion and disappointments, persistence and crises and withdrawal.
Listening, connecting, finding solutions and answers in art is a process that is not tied to standard working hours, it is a burning without limits, which is difficult to extinguish and silence (sometimes I just want a magic switch!). Being on stage with musicians with a lot of potential and openness to what is happening in the moment - that's the charm of making music for me. I would kiss the muse at every concert myself, but what if it's not just in our hands. On the other hand, those kisses are what drives us. The muses are whistling at the stamps and laurels, they don't care about reviews, criticism, successes, awards, honors. How many times during my studies, when I was nourished by visiting concerts, I was insecure and I doubted my own perception or even the lack of perception of what was happening on stage, I witnessed only aesthetic baths of clichéd virtuosity and refinements that do not go beyond the surface and conform to current music the trend. My thirty-five years of walking the edge between musical ecstasy and disaster carry wonderful memories and also some less desirable consequences. When I draw the line, that on the edge of the possible is still my ideal, that which is impossible and considered unattainable (and not speed!), but despite the fatigue still seems like the right choice, even if not necessarily healthy.
Programmatic music creations are my challenge, my dose of the forbidden: I want to convey content, life through music that is not polished or according to the cheap fashion taste of the time. At the Maribor Festival, I would like to share with the people of Maribor my strawberry selection of programs as well as musical re-creators, colleagues, friends, those who have made a special impression on me over the years and who believe in excesses and in the message of coded musical notation, in these higher words, as Robert Schumann told him. I would like to introduce musicians who have the power of mystical transformation and play for listeners who are open and permeable, who are not necessarily connoisseurs, and even those who are not fans of classical music at all. At its core, it is really anything but what it is considered to be today (stiff, serious, bureaucratic, elitist, lifeless, etc.).
Let's go back to the roots of music, from which we draw strength to fight, internal and external. Let's dare to experience upheavals of feelings, let's feel that we live fully, that something can touch us and that we can also touch each other...
Performs at the Maribor Festival
11
September
Slavic umami
19:30
Ondine Otta Klasinc Hall, SNG Maribor
13
September
Trans: Danube
19:30
Union Hall, Maribor
14
September
View
19:30
Union Hall, Maribor
15
September
Oberkrain – Unterkrain and southern vitamins
11:00
Maribor City Park Pavilion
21
September
The delicacy of the Balkans
20:00
General Maistro Hall, National House Maribor
22
September
In the name of roots
19:30
Union Hall, Maribor