Music Biennale Zagreb
[2] The Biennale has collaborated with some of the biggest international names in contemporary music, including Luciano Berio, John Cage, Peter Maxwell Davies, Mauricio Kagel, Witold Lutosławski, Bruno Maderna and Igor Stravinsky.
[3] The festival gained international prominence in the 1960s and the 1970s due in large part to an ambivalent position of Yugoslavia in the political and ideological divisions of the Cold War, making it a unique gathering place for artists from both East and West.
[2][4][5] Just as its founder had hoped, it has provided a boost for Croatian composers and musicians by accelerating their integration into world trends in contemporary music, especially through co-productions and partnerships with their foreign colleagues.
[2][6] It has also proved popular with the concert-going public, as its events are seen by almost ten thousand people, which, according to the festival's long-time director Ivo Josipović, controverts the idea of Biennale being about a "group of freaks who pour water into a piano".
[14] Still, his organizing efforts earned him two days in prison under interrogation by the Yugoslav secret police, because his frequent trips to Soviet Union and the USA were deemed suspicious.
Shortly before Cage was due to perform, Kelemen was warned by the authorities that any "antics" onstage such as crawling under the piano would lead to the festival being banned.
[14] The 1963 edition also featured the world premiere of Witold Lutosławski' Trois poèmes d'Henri Michaux, commissioned for the Biennale by Slavko Zlatić, the director of the Radio Zagreb Choir, and conducted by the composer himself.
[16][17][18] In 1981, rock music was introduced to the Biennale, with a closing-night concert that featured Classix Nouveaux and Gang of Four, together with some of the most prominent Yugoslav new wave bands Električni Orgazam, Laboratorija Zvuka, Haustor, and Šarlo Akrobata.
[20][21] As a part of their music act, they reproduced speeches by the late Yugoslav president Tito while simultaneously displaying a pornographic film.
