Equally at home on the concert stage and in the opera house, Živa makes music feel alive — fresh, convincing performances and the energy to get ambitious projects off the ground.
Živa Ploj Peršuh has established herself on the Slovenian and international music scene as a conductor who captivates audiences with her fresh and convincing performances. She is one of Slovenia’s most accomplished conductors of her generation, equally at home on the concert stage and in the opera house. She made history as the first woman ever to conduct at the Slovenian National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, making her debut with Richard Strauss’s Salome, and she was immediately re-invited to conduct new productions of both opera and ballet productions.
Živa is a native of one of Europe’s great cultural crossroads between Vienna, Venice and the Balkan region, where Habsburg symphonic heritage, Italian bel canto, strong Slavic roots and Central European modernism meet. She shapes Brahms and Mahler with Viennese sensibility and Puccini and Verdi with Italian line, understands folk heritage and brings fluency to works by Eötvös, Glass and new commissions. Her music-making carries that double inheritance: deep respect for tradition, and an instinct for the new.
She excels at large symphonic repertoire, particularly works by Bartók, Brahms, Beethoven, Dvořák, Shostakovich, Strauss, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky, and especially works with a vocal element – including the Requiems of Brahms, Verdi and Fauré as well as Mahler’s masterpieces – drawing on her experience in the opera world. Her opera repertoire includes Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Tosca, Verdi’s Macbeth and Otello, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and The Maid of Orleans, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute, Richard Strauss’s Salome, Philip Glass’s La Belle et la Bête, and Hans Krása’s Brundibár, to name but a few.
She is a versatile conductor, passionate about challenging projects, especially those that support young musicians, with boundless energy and the ability to get ambitious projects off the ground. After completing her musicology studies in Ljubljana, she studied orchestral and choral conducting in Mannheim, Germany. By the end of her studies in Mannheim, she had established her own orchestra, Festine, with the aim of connecting young musicians from Slovenia and the Balkan region with Slovenian professional musicians and coaching them in contemporary music performance. As part of her work with Festine, Živa brought the education of children and young musicians into focus, creating the family concert series Festinice, whose innovative concert programmes incorporated theatre, silent film, painting and dance to attract wider audiences.
In 2012 Živa established the Ljubljana International Orchestra. It functions as a cultural ambassador for Ljubljana, simulating a professional orchestral environment to help young artists from diverse countries collaborate and train. Formed of musicians from around the world, it has toured to Austria, Croatia, Italy, Serbia, Spain and the UK. The orchestra has attracted international artists such as Wolfram Christ, Gregory Ahss, Michael Barenboim, Reinhold Friedrich, Domingo Hindoyan, Daniele Gatti and others, and has received awards from the presidents of Slovenia and Italy.
In 2019 Živa established the Slovenian Youth Orchestra in conjunction with international and local partners. The orchestra has become an important symbol of Slovenian culture, standing alongside more established European national youth orchestras, and in 2022 it was accepted as a full member of the European Federation of National Youth Orchestras.
In 2022 she co-founded Music for the Future, personally leading the evacuation of 142 young Ukrainian musicians to Ljubljana and their integration through rehearsals, concerts and education. Under her baton, the orchestra performed across Europe, from a charity concert with Gidon Kremer at Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana to the Liederhalle in Stuttgart and the opening of the Bled Strategic Forum, and was featured on BBC News. More at: www.future.smo.ngo
Behind this stands a clear strategy: she is a committed advocate for Slovenian composers, performers and, above all, young musicians, who gain international contacts and collaborations through her projects and her conducting. Co-creating Slovenian cultural landscape she doesn’t wait for new platforms; she creates them, and acts as a cultural diplomat when the moment calls for it, using music as a tool for strengthening intercultural dialogue and restoring humanity.
Živa has been a regular guest conductor with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestras of the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor and Ljubljana, and the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra. She has conducted in Austria, Hungary, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and many countries across Europe and North Africa.
01 — Founded 2019
Slovenia’s national youth symphony orchestra and full member of the European Federation of National Youth Orchestras — with Gidon Kremer, Ute Lemper and Lauri Porra, from Ljubljana to Bucharest and Berlin.
smo.ngo
02 — Since 2022
142 young Ukrainian musicians, evacuated to Ljubljana and formed into a symphony orchestra that toured Europe with the support of Gidon Kremer.
future.smo.ngo
03 — International
More than 800 musicians from 42 countries; tours to Austria, Croatia, Italy, Serbia, Spain and the UK, and a medal from the President of Italy for its 2018 centenary project with the Sarajevo Philharmonic.
art-bsa.eu
04 — Since 2003 · Artistic director
The Ljubljana cultural NGO behind the Ljubljana International Orchestra, Festine and the European Career Center.
art-bsa.eu“She produced an energetic reading which drove the narrative forward … capturing the underlying pulse of the work.”
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