Silvio Foretić

Mr. Foretić spent his childhood and youth in Sarajevo and Osijek, and after first real attempts at composing, he started composition studies in 1959 in the class of Milko Kelemen at the Academy of Music in Zagreb. During his studies he worked as a journalist, orchestra musician, ballet and opera rehearser, as well as a piano player and an in-house composer at the Jazavac satirical theatre (today renamed Kerempuh).
In 1963, together with Janko Jezovšek he founded the Contemporary Music Ensemble whoseprovocative and engaged activity was based on the opposition to conventionality and institution-alization. In 1966, he moved to Cologne and continued his composition studies at the local University of Music under Bernd Alois Zimmermann while pursuing electronic music studies with Herbert Eimert. Following this, he studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen and worked as an associate and assistant to Mauricio Kagel. From 1974 to 2006 he taught at the Folkwang School of Music in Essen and Duisburg where he also founded the Fin de siècle - fin de millénaire ensemble in 1982 with which he held around 50 contemporary music concerts in 12 years.
He is one of the founders and a longstanding president of the Colonia Croatica Association in Cologne. He was a member of the presidium of the Cologne Society for New Music for several years and the artistic director of the Music Forum in Opatija.
He is working as a composer, lyricist, and performer (conductor, piano player, singer) of mostly his own works.