Jakob Jež (23 November 1928 – 8 March 2022) was a Slovenian composer.

Life

Jakob Jež was born on 23 November 1928 in

Boštanj Boštanj ( or ; in older sources also ''Gorenji Boštanj'',''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 86. german: Obersavenstein, , , or ) is a ...

, a village in eastern

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

. In 1954, he graduated from the Academy of Music in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

, Department of Music History. His dissertation, defended in 1959, focused on the early works of Slovenian composer

Marij Kogoj Marij Kogoj Marij Julij Kogoj (Trieste, 20 September 1892 – Ljubljana, 25 February 1956) was a Slovenian composer. He was a pupil of Schoenberg and Franz Schreker, and immensely popular during the 1920s, culminating with his opera ''Črne maske' ...

. Kogoj remained a consistent influence for Jež throughout his career. Although he did not obtain a degree in composition, Jež studied composition with Marijan Lipovský and Karol Pahor. The Lexicon of Yugoslav Music describes his musical style as follows: "By adopting some modern compositional procedures, ežcreates a distinctive musical language, full of intimate expressiveness, with a developed sense of colour, lyricism and loose structures - a modern and contemporary language which is never incomprehensibly aggressive." Jež taught throughout his career, first at a music school and a high school, and then at the Music and Ballet School in Ljubljana (1955-1970). From 1992 until his retirement, he was a full-time professor of music education at the Faculty of Pedagogy in Ljubljana. From 1960 to 1965, he was a member of the composers' group Pro musica viva. He also served as the editor-in-chief of the music magazines ''Grlica'' (1968–1988) and ''Naši chori'' (1991–1998), and between 1967 and 1970, he was chief editor of the newsletter ''Skladatelj'' (composer), published by the Društvo slovenskih skladateljev (Slovene Composers' Association). His daughter is composer Brina Jež-Brezavšček, and his granddaughters are flutists Anja Clift and Maruša Brezavšček.

Awards

He received numerous awards for his work, including the first prize of the

Federalni Radio Federalni Radio ("Federal Radio") is a Bosnian entity-level public radio station operated by Radio-Television of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RTVFBiH). The program is broadcast on a daily basis in Bosnian and Croatian. This radio ...

for his cantata "Do fraig amors," the Prešeren Fund Prize, the Prešeren Prize for lifetime achievement in composition in 1991, the Kozin Prize for the totality of his choral oeuvre, awarded by the Slovene Composers' Association in 2004, and the Župančič Prize of the Municipality of Ljubljana for lifetime achievement in 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jež, Jakob 1928 births 2022 deaths Slovenian male composers People from the Municipality of Grosuplje University of Ljubljana alumni Prešeren Award laureates