| Žak Ozmo Music Director, Lutenist, Scholar | |||||
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Žak Ozmo first started his musical training at the age of seven on the classical guitar and had his first broadcasted solo performance at the age of fourteen. Following years of musical training and performances (during which he also earned a diploma in architecture) he turned his attention fully to early plucked instruments, performance practice, and related history and philosophy. This pursuit included studies with James Tyler, Pat O'Brien, and William Carter, among others. He studied conducting with Noel Edison and Lucinda Carver, and musicology with Bruce Alan Brown and Giulio Ongaro. Žak holds a doctorate in early music performance from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and has completed postdoctoral studies in the same area from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Hailed by Classical Music magazine as 'an expert on early plucked instruments', he has performed as a continuo player, chamber musician, and as a soloist across Europe, North America, and Asia on the archlute, theorbo, Renaissance lute, and Baroque guitar. Žak's performances include engagements with some of the world's finest ensembles, while currently much of his focus is on working and performing with his own period-instrument group L'Avventura London. Upcoming projects also include a solo recording and a recordings of neglected lute song repertoire. Žak assumed the role of musical co-director in a Canadian performance of Henry Purcell's The Indian Queen in 1999 and continued his work as a musical director in the Los Angeles and London areas. In London he formed and directs L'Avventura London, a professional ensemble dedicated to a historically-informed exploration of repertoire from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Testifying to the ensemble's rapid rise, L'Avventura's performances have been featured on BBC Radio 3, American NPR, German KulturRadio and MDR Figaro, Austrian ORF Radio Ö1, Belgium Radio Klara, and Russian Classic FM, among others; the press has praised the group for its 'excellent musicianship' and 'an admirable understanding of Baroque performance conventions' (Gramophone), and described its performances as 'engaging, entertaining…an enormous amount of atmosphere and character' (Opera News). L'Avventura currently has recording agreements with Hyperion Records and Opella Nova Records. The group's unique combination of brilliant musicianship and cutting-edge musicology has further led to its appointment as Ensemble in Association at the Foundling Museum in London, home of the one-of-a-kind Gerald Coke Handel Collection. Žak has been a recipient of various prestigious awards, prizes, and scholarships including a recent Society for Theatre Research award for reconstructing and recording music from English ballad operas and the Dowland Prize for Lute at the John Kerr Competition in Kent. He has also been active as a lecturer in historical performance practice, collegium director, and lute teacher for various early music societies and at the Royal College of Music in London, University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and the University of California at Fullerton. As an extension of his educational activities, in 2011 he formed the London Community Baroque Orchestra (now functioning as an educational arm of L'Avventura London) based at the Foundling Museum, which he also directs. The goal of the organization is to provide training in historical performance practice to its members and to present high-level musical performances. The group works on musical repertoire consisting of much-loved masterpieces and new discoveries (including those found in the Museum's Handel Collection). Žak's
writings on historical performance practice have been translated into
French, German, Spanish, and Korean, and appear in some of the leading
journals and magazines in the field. His affinity for re-discovering
and reviving lost musical repertoires has led to an ongoing affiliation
with the groundbreaking Ballad Operas Online database through Oxford
University Digital Libraries, while his current projects for publication
include an edition of eighteenth-century lute concerti for A-R Editions
and supervision of the lute section of Francesco Geminiani Opera Omnia
for Ut Orpheus Edizioni (general editor: Christopher Hogwood). Further,
he frequently presents his research at conferences in Europe and North
America; recent presentations include those at the SECEM, the New University
of Lisbon, the Handel, Purcell, and Literature conference at Senate
House, University of London, the British Society for Eighteenth-Century
Studies, and the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society
in Philadelphia (USA).
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