Biography

"A young artist with great natural instinct, beautiful musicality, a lovely desire to express herself artistically, with taste, poetry and extroversion. Ivana's love of music is engaging!" Alicia de Larrocha

I was born in Dubrovnik into a family where my mother and brother were both musicians. From early childhood, music was integral to my life. Aged four, I started piano studies at Dubrovnik's “Luka Sorkočević” Music Conservatory, working first with Lukre Cobenzl, then Vesna Miletic. I completed my initial studies in 1991-1992 during the war in Croatia. Subsequently I continued my musical education at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana with Tatjana Ognjanovič, graduating with honours in 2002. During my student years I performed frequently, despite suffering a serious car accident in 1996. At the same time as pursuing musical studies, I developed my linguistic and literary interests, and graduated in Italian at the Dante Alighieri Institute in Ravenna. In 1997 I returned to concert stage with the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, performing Mozart's Piano Concerto in F-Major, KV 459, then won the "Prešeren" award from the Academy of Ljubljana in 1998. Further study with Evgenij Timakin and Naum Starkmann (Moscow); Alberto Portugheis (Argentina/London), Eugen Indjic (Paris) and Stephen Kovacevich (London) have also had a great impact on my playing and creative development. In 2004 and 2005 I studied with Lazar Berman in Florence, and from 2005 to 2009 with Alicia de Larrocha in Barcelona.

The venues where I have performed include the Rector's Palace, Sponza and Revelin Fort in Dubrovnik, Glazbeni Zavod in Zagreb, the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, and the small hall of the Slovenska Filharmonija, Ljubljana; I have given anniversary concerts of Croatian female composer Dora Pejačević in her native town, Našice, playing her own piano - a museum treasure. Further afield, appearances have included in London at the Regent Hall Festival, Steinway Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and St. James' Piccadilly (courtesy of the European Beethoven Society). I have toured Argentina twice (Buenos Aires, Cordoba, La Plata), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia) and Uruguay (Montevideo). I am a regular guest at festivals including the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, the Sorrento-Dubrovnik festival in Sorrento, the Epidaurus Festival and the “Due Sponde un mare” in Termoli. I perform regularly as a soloist with the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, collaborating there with conductors including Ivo Dražinić, Tonko Ninić, Zlatan Srzić and Marko Vatovec, and have also worked with eminent musicians such as Alberto Portugheis, Fatos Querimaj and Pavel Berman. Several contemporary composers have dedicated compositions to me, notably Slovenes Primož Ramovš, Gregor Pirš, Žiga Stanič (Slovenia), Pero Šiša and Tatjana Vorel (Croatia), Peter Seabourne (UK) and Michael Denhoff (Germany).

In September 2007 I founded the Epidaurus Festival in Cavtat, Croatia, and have been its artistic director since then. I love travelling, writing, languages, photography and sports (swimming and biking). I am fluent in five languages and have published several books of poetry in Croatian, Italian, Slovenian, English and French. In 2006, I became a member of Akkuaria (Italy) for which I have published poems frequently and have won several prizes.
New challenges await in music and in other fields: I am curious myself to learn what's coming next…?

Ms Vidovic is the creator and the artistic director of the Epidaurus Festival in Cavtat, Croatia since September, 2007.