BIOGRAPHY
Ljubinka was a full-time artist at the Ojai Music Festival 2024. Her interpretation of works by John Cage, John Zorn, and Sofia Gubaidulina was described as “extraordinary,” “virtuosic,” “stunning,” “fabulous,” and “mesmerizing” by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Classical Voice, and others.
Born and raised in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ljubinka Kulisic (LIU-been-ka KU-li-shich) is an accordion artist whose repertoire spans music from early baroque (adaptation for free-bass accordion) to contemporary music written for her instrument. As a child, she won several awards at competitions by performing modern pieces for accordion. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Music Performance and Master of Arts in Music Performance from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland in Lugano. She performed solo and in contemporary music ensembles across Europe, Canada, and the United States.
Ljubinka participated in numerous festivals, such as the Act Performance Festival in Bern (Switzerland) where she performed pieces for accordion by Arne Nordheim. Moreover, she performed pieces by John Cage at the Contemporary Music Festival ”900 e presente” at the Radio of Italian Switzerland (RSI) in Lugano.
Ljubinka’s talent has been recognized on some of the world’s most prestigious stages. She performed as a soloist with the New World Symphony in Miami and at the New England Conservatory in Boston. These performances were not only a testament to her skill but also an opportunity for her to collaborate with renowned musicians, including conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and Grammy-award-winning violist Kim Kashkashian.
EVENTS
teaching
Ljubinka honed her teaching skills at the University of Toronto (Canada) as a teaching assistant for the Contemporary Music Ensemble. In this role, she led graduate students, introduced them to new music literature, compositional techniques, and ways of interpreting contemporary Western Art music. Her dedication to music education is a testament to her deep understanding of the subject and her commitment to the development of new talent.
She earned a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Music Education and Music Therapy from Halvetic Music Institute in Bellinzona (Switzerland) and teaches at the United Nations International School in New York (USA).
Ljubinka speaks fluently five languages: English, German, Italian, Greek, and Serbian/Croatian.
PRESS
Los Angeles Times
“Accordionist Ljubinka Kulisic also absorbed the zen calling in a stunning early Sunday morning solo John Cage concerto of Satie-inspired works played with meditative focus. She joined Jay Campbell, maybe the most zen-like of all cellists who plays the most exceptionally challenging new music without show, for Sofia Gubaidulina’s wrenchingly spiritual “In Croce.” Kulisic could also fabulously play the clown in John Zorn’s “Road Runner,” a sassy collage of classical-music fragments.”
New York Times
“Kulisic repeatedly played the figure, as if in a trance, until Campbell cut into it with slices of downward phrases. Then he was pushed to extremes of passion and power while she unleashed a broad spectrum of color, until, at the end, he took up her theme from the start. More playful was Kulisic’s account of the John Zorn solo “Road Runner,” a brief piece that unfolds like an anarchic playlist of familiar tunes on shuffle, with a lot of room for improvisation and directions to “make mistakes.” She took it up with a comic spirit, smiling as the audience giggled at the recognition of melodies from the standard repertoire and pop culture, before abruptly switching to something new or slamming her hands down in tone clusters.
At Sunday’s morning meditation concert, she performed, less hectically, works by John Cage: “Dream” and “Souvenir” breathed in long, spare phrases punctuated by dense but harmonious chords. “Cheap Imitation,” a treatment of Satie using chance operations, was conversational and wandering, welcoming at the start and lulling by the end.”
Sequenza 21
https://www.sequenza21.com/2024/06/ojai-music-festival-saturday-june-8-2024/
“Using a sort of musical jiujitsu, however, John Zorn, together with the talented Ms. Kulisic, have leveraged accordion cliches, snatches of familiar tunes and an impressive array of extended techniques to conjure an entertaining and dazzling tour de force from this unlikely instrument.
Road Runner opens with a rapid series short quotes from popular music, cartoons and other sources quickly followed by the crashing of great cluster chords, insanely rapid scales and all sorts of physical effects that leave the listener breathless. The recognizably musical phrases lull the brain into complacency and then a booming outburst thoroughly scrambles the context. The cycle then repeats and this process results – counter intuitively – in listening more closely. The listener is trying to make sense of all the sounds together and not just the familiar ones. This required virtuosic playing by Ms. Kulisic who delivered an amazing performance and received enthusiastic applause for her efforts.”
San Francisco Classical Voice
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/preview/ojai-music-director-mitsuko-uchida-shows-her-modernist-chops
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/feature/ojai-2024-combines-classic-and-contemporary-never
“It’s amazing how a festival’s momentum can hinge on one performance. But just such a pivot occurred during Saturday’s 10 a.m. concert. Up to that point, the musical repertory had not so much as cracked a grin. That all changed when Kulisic strode onstage with her accordion and delivered every wisecrack, goofball reference, and knowing wink contained within John Zorn’s 1985 “beep-beep” looney tune, Road Runner. It was a performance that hit like a sledgehammer to the head of Wile E. Coyote, creating another Ojai moment.”
The Santa Barbara Independent
Review | Return to Ojai Festival Form, Mozart Riding Sidesaddle
“In Ojai, we first got acquainted with Kulisic at a striking Friday 8 a.m. concert in Zipper Hall (on the campus of the Besant Hill School in Upper Ojai), as the partner of cellist Campbell on Gubaidulina’s In Croce — repeated at the Libbey Bowl, the only work played twice here. She later impressed in both contemplative and maverick party modes, with a delectable early morning program of John Cage works at 8 a.m. in the Chaparral Auditorium and, at the Libbey Bowl, navigated the tricky road map of John Zorn’s wildly impish postmodern mash-up Road Runner.’’
Classical Voice North America
In Return To Music Fest, Uchida Brought Mix Of Vision And Sublime Art
“One of the most effective pieces of the festival was also its silliest: accordionist Ljubinka Kulisic’s virtuosic account of John Zorn’s Road Runner on Saturday morning. Barely lasting seven minutes, the score includes numerous bits of tunes. Ljubinka slapped the side of her instrument as if it were an old malfunctioning radio, and we heard snatches of themes from Dragnet, The Green Hornet, The Godfather, Piazzolla, Für Elise, you name it. Road Runner grabbed the audience.”
