Mladen Tarbuk is a Croatian composer, conductor, writer, educator, and broadcaster. He was a guest conductor at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf – Duisburg during several seasons and has been performing regularly with renowned orchestras and opera houses around the world, such as Hungarian State Opera, Haifa Symphony Orchestra, Opera Lyra Ottawa, Orquesta Sinfonica de Estado Mexico, Sinfonietta Cracovia, Wiener Concert-Verein, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana Palermo, Teatro Verdi Trieste, State Opera Prague, Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and many other.
Tarbuk was the Intendant of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, the region’s leading opera, ballet, and dramatic plays house, Music Programme Director and subsequently the Artistic Director of the renowned Dubrovnik Festival. His prolific career has been significantly enriching the musical life in Croatia through conducting concerts and operas at the national opera houses, teaching composition, orchestral conducting, orchestra, and music theory at the Music Academy of Zagreb and presenting, hosting, and conducting concerts for youth and children that were broadcast by Croatian Radio. In addition, his long-term collaboration with many home festivals and institutions, especially with the Croatian Radiotelevision Symphony Orchestra, resulted in Tarbuk arranging, revising, editing, performing, conducting, and recording thousands of pages of Croatian music.
Mladen Tarbuk wrote over 90 works, from solo and chamber music to large symphonic and theatrical forms. His pieces have been performed in major contemporary music festivals, including Enescu Festival Bucharest, The World Music Days, Europamusicale Munich, Musicora Paris, Le Temps de soufflé Paris, Trieste Prima, World Saxophone Congress Glasgow, Musikprotokoll Graz, Moscow Autumn, and Music Biennale Zagreb. As a composer, Tarbuk came to international fame in 1990, when the International Gaudeamus Festival in Amsterdam has premiered his piece Martyr d’un jongleur. Then, the first International Composers Competition in Vienna in 1991, chaired by Claudio Abbado, gave his composition Medida del Tiempo a recommendation. Tarbuk also won two first prizes in international competitions Ernst Vogel and Tolosa, as well as numerous Croatian awards for the highest achievements as a composer: Šulek, Slavenski, Papandopulo, and the Academy Award of Lisinski Concert Hall. His ballet Streetcar Named Desire opened The World Days of Music 2005 in Zagreb. Tarbuk appears in many recordings on labels such as HoneyRock, Orpheus and Cantus.
Festival Symphony Orchestra & the Chester River Chorale, Decker Theatre, Washington College | Mladen Tarbuk, conductor | Rossini: Overture: La Cenerentola Tarbuk: Concerto for Flute (Jennifer Parker-Harley, soloist) Beethoven: Mass in C
Mladen Tarbuk, conductor | M. Tarbuk: Sinfonia da camera, Respigh: ll tramonto, for mezzosoprano and strings, Cherubini: Symphony in D, Wagner: Siegfried-Idyll
DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN (Mahler) College of Arts Bern HKB Ensemble | Musical direction and editing ~ Direction musicale et arrangement ~ Mladen Tarbuk | Staging ~ Mise en scène ~ Mathias Behrends | Sunday, June 3, 2018 Dimanche 3 juin 2018
Pianist Diana Brekalo performs Mladen Tarbuk: Selection from 12 Inventions: No 1 'a una voce' 02:31 No 2 'Aria' 05:16 No 5 'Lullaby' 08:08 No 7 'Sequence' 09:24 No 10 'Cannon' | 16/10/2018
Mladen Tarbuk conducted pieces by contemporary Polish and Croatian composers. | 08/10/2017
Le Droit, Jean Jacques Van Vlasselaer
… the musical flow and the penetrating interpretation made by an excellent conductor from Croatia, Mladen Tarbuk. … Tarbuk conducts in an articulate, intense manner, delivering his interpretation without precipitation, not only of the lyrical matter with a pathos that is penetrating yet not heavy, but also of the unprecedented, post-Wagnerian harmonisations that come with the lyrical matter. He also has the gift of knowing how to both push and carry a voice at the same time …
Orchestra of G. Verdi Teatro Lirico Trieste, Italy
Cronache di Trieste, April 2014, Maria Luisa Runti
On the podium, Mladen Tarbuk conducted the Orchestra of Giuseppe Verdi Teatro Lirico with interpretative rigor and harmonic colouring, underlining the dialogue between music and dance. The overture in which the sound of the bassoon and the ostinati appeared, followed by strings and horns was magnificent and it empowered the stage action with great intensity.
Orchestra of G. Verdi Teatro Lirico Trieste, Italy
Bravo to the conductor, Mladen Tarbuk from Croatia, who, even with an orchestra much smaller compared to what is written in score, succeeded in making the vivid music of the Sacre credible and effective.
Mladen Tarbuk, in an expression of his fatherly feelings, combines comforting sonority in the low strings with a soft, high sound and pizzicato in the violins, sets high and low registers apart and lets his music inspired by Georg Trakl turn into a joyful dance with bells and an intense double bass solo: an atmospheric piece with all sorts of emotions and associations.