Page 15 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2026 Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes.../Composers’ Societies Past and Present...

Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2026. Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes: preplet stanovskega in nacionalnega | Composers’ Societies Past and Present: Combining the Professional and the National
Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-555-9.15-18
© 2026 Jernej Weiss

Composers’ Societies Past and Present: Combining
the Professional and the National

Jernej Weiss
University of Ljubljana / University of Maribor

The present monograph, entitled Composers’ Societies Past and Present, fo-
cuses at the international context of the activities of various composers’ so-
cieties of the past and present. As we celebrate the 80 anniversary of the
th
founding of the Society of Slovene Composers, we aim to shed light on the
activities of comparable institutions in other countries, with the help of
contributions from prominent scholars in Slovenia and abroad. In the past,
these societies played a part – each in their own way – in shaping not only
musical creativity but also numerous other fields of musical culture.
A key focus of the monograph is the combination of the profession-
al and the national in the activities of composers’ societies. Conditioned by
various social turning points, this combination has decisively shaped the
nature of institutional activity in the musical sphere, both in Slovenia and
elsewhere. If on the one hand this coexistence defines the importance of
composers’ societies in preserving musical identity and promoting nation-
al musical creativity, on the other hand it reveals the range of activities un-
dertaken by these societies in order to meet the professional needs of their
members.
***
The introductory paper (The Coexistence of the Social, the Profession-
al and the Artistic in the History of the Society of Slovene Composers) by
Sonja Kralj, a leading expert on the Society of Slovene Composers, sheds
light on the Society’s activities through the prism of cooperation with

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