He wrote over 100 works for symphony orchestra, solo instruments, chamber ensembles, choral and vocal pieces, ballet, and scores for film and stage music.
He studied piano and composition at Ljubljana Academy of Music with Alojz Srebotnjak[1] in Slovenia and later at Belgrade University with Enriko Josif.
[1] In June 1992, Kulenovic organized a protest against the policies of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade, composed of musicians and artists, the first of its kind.
After experiencing destruction of his property and receiving a call for execution by an extremist newspaper he, his wife, and two sons fled the country to the United States with a Fulbright scholarship provided by the New England Conservatory in Boston.
As I walked through the hallways of the school, I was constantly engaged by the sound of electric guitars or South American percussion instruments, synthesizers, and so on.
One of my piano concertos, “War Boogie”, is maybe the most obvious example that comes to my mind, of a piece from my immediate past, which already dealt with these influences, not normally found in so called, “classical music”.