Borut Zagoranski

Borut's music education started at the music school in his hometown and continued at the Conservatory of Music and Ballet in Maribor, Slovenia. He graduated in 2002 from the Academy of Music at the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Croatia, receiving at the same time the Rector's Award for Best Student. He then enrolled for the Postgraduate Advanced Diploma in Performance at the Royal Academy of Music and completed his final concert diploma in 2006. His mentors include Marjetka Babić, Slavko Magdić and Owen Murray, as well as other eminent musicians and accordion teachers.

Zagoranski has won numerous national and international accordion competitions. As the Slovenian representative, he reached the finale of the 1998 Eurovision Young Musicians competition in Vienna. He was the 2006 recipient of the prestigious Friends of the Royal Academy of Music Wigmore Award.

He has participated in many renowned international festivals, such as ISCM World Music Days, Highgate International Chamber Music Festival and Glasbeni September Maribor, and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra. He has played under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies, Lalo Schifrin, Pablo Zinger and Marko Letonja, and appeared at distinguished concert venues across the world, such as Wigmore Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus and Benaroya Hall.

Zagoranski is a jury member at international accordion competitions, reviewer of specialised publications and author of university-level accordion curricula. He is professor both at the Academy of Music at the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula and at the Academy of Music at the University in Ljubljana, where he is Head of Chamber Music. Since 2014, he has been an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.

Photo by Agata Adamczyk