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Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes | Composers’ Societies Past and Present
Dušan Bavdek
The Society of Slovene Composers – Role in society and today‘s challenges
The Society of Slovene Composers (DSS) celebrates its 80th anniversary in
2025. This milestone offers a starting point for reflection, analysis of the
present situation and a vision of future activity.
The DSS staff currently consists of a team of three, whose main areas of
work are concert and publishing activities. Both these areas also include
an international dimension, with the latter further complemented by rep-
resentation of Slovenia in international organisations.
The concert series organised by the DSS provide the most comprehensive
overview of contemporary musical creativity in our cultural sphere, with
more than 50 new works presented each year. The majority of the concerts
are moderated.
Commissioning new works is one of the key elements of the DSS’s activi-
ty. The society’s publishing arm Edicije DSS publishes scores and sound re-
cordings of works by Slovene composers, protecting their copyrights and
acting as representative for their performance materials (scores, parts, etc.).
Through the publication of didactic editions, the DSS is also present in the
educational field. All publications are catalogued and are available from
the society’s online shop. Every year the DSS awards the Kozina Prize, the
highest specialist award in the field of musical creativity in Slovenia.
The first of the difficulties faced by the DSS is a lack of transparency in the
field of musical culture in Slovenia, where no systemic changes have been
made since Slovenia became independent. Support from the Ministry of
Culture has been drastically reduced, with the shortfall reflected in rates
for commissions of musical works that have not been revised since 2009,
fewer printings of symphonic works, frozen performance fees, and so on.
In 1993 the DSS was among the promoters of the establishment of copyright
protection society SAZAS, while in 2004 it was involved in the creation of
the Slovenian Music information Centre (SIGIC). We would like to see a
higher degree of cooperation with both organisations.
The DSS should play a more important role in shaping national cultural
policies. The question that needs to be asked is what the DSS, whose mem-
bership currently consists above all of composers of serious music, can do
to ensure the greater inclusion and, consequently, representation of com-
posers from other genres.
Keywords: Society of Slovene Composers (DSS), challenges, Edicije
DSS, concert season of the DSS, international activity of the DSS

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