Maruša Brezavšček
Bassoon, Recorder
Maruša Brezavšček is a Slovenian recorder player, specialising in early and contemporary music, and is also active as a performer on the baroque bassoon and dulcian. She teaches recorder at the Ljubljana Academy of Music in Slovenia and is otherwise based in Basel, Switzerland.
She is active both as a soloist and chamber musician and is a founding member of Ensemble Bastion and Ensemble Pampinea. The latter received the first prize at the London International Festival of Early Music competition in 2022.
As a recorder player, she has been the recipient of numerous prestigious accolades, including first prizes at the TARF 3 (Tel Aviv Recorder Competition) in 2020 in two distinct categories and first prize at the ERPS (European Recorder Players Society) Competition in Graz (2016). In September 2021, she received the Ivan Werner Award for artistic achievement for her performance as a soloist with the ensemble Musica Cubicularis at the Varaždinske Barokne Većeri festival. As a soloist, she also performed ensembles like Capricornus Consort Basel, Jerusalem Baroque Orchestraandthe Chamber Ensemble of the Slovenska Filharmonija.
Maruša has performed at festivals such asthe Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, London International Festival of Early Music,Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Erasmus Klingt! Festival Lab (Basel), Scelsi Festival (Basel), Festival Seviqc Brežice, Festival Radovljica, Varaždinske barokne većeri, Sozvočje svetov (Ljubljana), Barockfest (Salzburg), Tel Aviv Recorder Festival and Tartini Festival (Koper).
Maruša has obtained diplomas with distinction from Schola Cantorum Basiliensis/Musikakademie Basel and Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. She studied with distinct musicians, such as recorder players Dorothee Oberlinger, Pedro Memelsdorff, Antonio Politano, Han Tol, Andreas Böhlen, as well as bassoon players Donna Agrell, Josep Borras, and Carles Cristobal.
"Maruša Brezavšček is an exceptional virtuoso [...] Her phrasing was speech-like, in a murmuring dialogue with the ensemble. Her performance revealed rhetorical confidence, charisma, and wit in solo passages."
— Lovrenc Rogelj, Radio Ars RTV Slovenia, 2021
"Multi-award-winning young Slovenian musician Maruša Brezavšček has obviously mastered the recorder. Her technical skill was convincing, as was the distinct musical phrasing and dynamic nuance in her performance of all three virtuosic movements of Vivaldi's Concerto for Recorder in D Major, RV 428. Accompanied by the baroque orchestra Musica Cubicularis, the young artist presented an extremely impressive interpretation."
— Zdenka Veber, Klasika.hr, 2021