FILIP MERČEP
Lights of the music scene spotlight shone on Filip Merčep in front of Wienna Rathaus and an audience of 45.000 during his performance in the finals of Eurovision contest for young musicians in 2010, accompanied by the ORF symphonic orchestra and directed by Maestro Cornelius Meister. Eversince, with his numerous projects Filip has proven a wide range spectre of his music interest and performance.
He graduated on Academy of Music, University of Zagreb, in the class 2015 of Professor Igor Lešnik, on recital with the works of contemporary composers (Alvarez, Schwanter, Lešnik, Ishii, Psathas) and a scientific paper “Preparation Of Peformance Of Compositions For Percussionist Solo Accompanied By An Prerecorded Audio File; Freedom Of Interpretation Of Time And Instrumentation Of Given Material”. This earned Filip the MA title, Cum Laude (With Honors).
Eversince his student days, Filip was actively present on the Croatian music scene, performing on almost every major festival, such as Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Osor Musical Evenings, Music Biennale Zagreb, Zadar Summer, Šibenik Summer, Split Summer, and by performing solo with most of Croatian orchestras – Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, HRT Symphonic Orchestra, Dubrovnik Symphonic Orchestra, Wind Orchestra of Croatian Armed Forces. He won the most prestigious rewards, such as “Ivo Vuljević” – Awards of Croatian Musical Youth for the best young artist, Best Young Artist Award by the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Samobor reward, Yamaha Scholarship Award for the best young performing artist as the best percussionist of Zagreb Music Academy, 2nd place on “Universal marimba competition” in Belgium, 1st award on “Boris Papandopulo” competition in Zagreb and discographic award “Porin” for “the best interpretation of classical music.
Promoting Croatian music is an important part of Filip Merčep’s concert career. Performance of pieces of Croatian composer on his recitals all over the Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, …) brought him sympathies of the audience and numerous awards. For his interpretation of Concert for percussions and orchestra by Igor Lešnik and Franz Cibulka with Zagreb Philharmonic in Concert Hall Vatroslav Lisinski , and Concert for Xylophone and String orchestra by Boris Papandopulo with HRT Symphony Orchestra, Filip was awarded the Rector’s Award of the University of Zagreb and, a year before, the Music Academy of Zagreb Dean’s Award for his concert activity.
As a chamber musician, he cooperated with well-known Argentinian vocal performers Jose Luis Barreta, Sandra Rumolino and Jorge Rodriguez in project of tango opera for chamber ensemble and solo performers by A. Piazolla “Maria de Buenos Aires”.”Songs Of The Sun” by Sofia Gubaidulina he performed with the cello player Monika Leskovar, Ivana Bilić and Srebrenka Poljak in the “Sfumato” cycle by the choir of the Croatian National Television (HRT). Along with the Russian Court Chapel Choir, directed by Valeria Polyansky, he was a part of the performance of pieces by C. Orff and I. Stravinski, among many other chamber projects.He performed on the Bad Ragaz Festival of Chamber Music in Switzerland, Molyvos International Music Festival in Greece, where he performed Mahler’s 4th Symphony in chamber arrangement, togeather with the best young European music artists and famous soprano Marlis Petersen.
Filip is a member of Sudar percussion ensemble whose cooperation with great names of classical and crossover music filled concert halls and major festival of chamber and pop music festivals in Croatia.
He is also a member of Marimba Quartet with eminent marimba soloist Katarzyna Mycka, which was his first marimba role-model, and now a colleague and mentor. During his years of participating on International Katarzyna Mycka Marimba Academy he had a chance to work with the world best marimba players and percussion educators. In 2015, on Ms. Mycke’s call, he worked on her academy as the assistant, teaching chamber music.