Page 30 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2026 Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes.../Composers’ Societies Past and Present...

Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes | Composers’ Societies Past and Present
External challenges were joined by internal tensions. The members
of the Society no longer felt that it was sufficiently theirs, and therefore
no longer participated actively in its activities, while the executive board,
headed by Bojan Adamič, was burdened by “a paper battle that grew worse
every day and threatened to turn us into bureaucrats who would completely
forget about music, if we hadn’t already.” 24
Further complications were caused by a new system of commissioning
musical works that seriously affected relations between the Society of Slo-
vene Composers and the Cultural Community of Slovenia, which under the
new political arrangements had also assumed responsibility for the field of
music. In a heated public debate, the Society accused the representative of
the authorities, who advocated a transition from directly supporting com-
posers to supporting performers, of a lack of professionalism and transpar-
ency in the allocation of funds, while for its part the Cultural Community
hit back with the accusation that funds for the promotion of new musical
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works had been distributed on too informal a basis in the past.
The strained relations between the two organisations also led to a re-
duction in funding for concert activities. Despite this, the Society staged a
gala concert on 19 December 1989 as a way of thanking the sponsors and
donors who had contributed financial means for the renovation of its prem-
ises. It was on this occasion that the Society’s clubroom was renamed the
Osterc Room and the concert hall of the DSS Concert Atelier became the
Kogoj Hall. 26

The final period
The final period of the present outline of the Society’s history corresponds
to the period in which Slovenia attained independence and its first dec-
ade and a half as an independent state, in other words the years 1990–2005,
ending with the 60th anniversary of the Society’s founding. The legislative
changes adopted in Yugoslavia in 1989 in order to allow multiparty elec-
tions had transferred the responsibility for culture back to the state and
municipalities. Slovene composers participated actively in the process of
establishing conditions for culture in the new state, both by setting out

24 Minutes of the General Assembly of the Slovene Composers’ Society, held on 20
March 1980, DSS Archive.
25 Kralj, “Sobivanje družbenega, stanovskega in umetniškega,” 343–9.
26 Minutes from the 10 meeting of the DSS Executive Board, held on 6 December
th
1989, DSS Archive.

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