The AMAC UK concert ‘A Night at the Opera: Two flutes and Piano’, in support of awards for young Croatian scientists. It is to be performed by Snjezana Bosotina Budesa, Andrea Jelavic, and Vesna Podrug Kossjanenko. Highlights include: Rigolletto, Aida, Un Ballo in Maschera, William Tell, Eugene Onegin.

Edited by Brian Gallagher

Snježana Bosotina Budeša gained her degree in 1984 at the Fakultet Muzicke Umjetnosti in Belgrade, having finished music school in Split. She continued her studies in France, being taught by the noted flutists A.Mario, R. Guiot and Ch. Larde.

She has recorded for Croatian Radio Television, Radio Split and TV Dalmacija. She produced the CD ‘Meditation’ with harpist Edita Topic.

Currently she is a solo flautist in the Orkestar Opere Narodnog kazalista in Split and teaches at the Josip Hatze Music School.

Snjezana Bosotina Budesa

Andrea Jelavic – Snjezana’s daughter – gained her degree at Muzicka Akademija Split in 2008, having started to play the flute at the age of six. She then went to France to continue her studies at Ecole Musique agree in Metz, where she won Premiere Grand Prix.

She has performed solo concerts at Hrvatsko Narodno Kazaliste Split, Vatroslav Lisinski, Zagreb as well as in Slovenia, Austria, Greece and France.

Andrea Jelavic

Vesna Podrug Kossjanenko is from Split, where she took her first piano lessons from Professor G. Lentic. She graduated from the Split Music School in 1986. Winning an ‘Ivo Pogorelich’ scholarship, she went to Vienna to continue her studies with Professor Paul Badura-Skoda at the University for Music and the Performing Arts.

She has performed in TV and radio concerts for Austrian Radio and also given concerts in Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Croatia, Turkey, Great Britain, Ireland, Finland and Germany. From 1998 to 2007 she was a pianist at the Vienna State Opera House.

Since 2007 she has been a professor of piano at the Academy of Arts at the University of Split.

Vesna Podrug Kossjanenko

AMAC UK is the British branch of the Association of Alumni and Friends of Croatian Universities. It was established in 1993 in Oxford at a meeting attended by some 70 graduates and friends of Croatian universities. In 1996 the AMAC-UK Educational Trust was registered as a charity with the Charity Commission in London.

The concert takes place on 28 February, beginning at 7.30 at 33 Frognal, London, NW3 6YD (Courtesy of Tony and Gabrijela Suchy) It will be followed by drinks and canapés.

Tickets cost £25 each. To secure tickets for this very special event, please send a cheque made payable to AMAC UK to Mira Malovic-Yeeles, 30 Hayward Rd. Oxford, OX2 8LW. If you decide to attend at the last minute please call Mira on 01865 556 686 to see if there any tickets left.