“There are not many choirs that live for forty years or more. Especially not those who have musically successfully survived the transformation of the choir of one or another ‘company’ in their lives and who managed to develop a new, different, realistic and, above all, added, from the ‘union’ past with thoughtful management, so necessary and insufficiently present in the amateur sphere and observed value. The Petrol women’s choir certainly deserves attention among them. A good four decades of its activity are connected by four choirmasters, one piano, a huge number of compositions, around 1,800 rehearsals and performances, the two most persistent ‘forty-year-olds’, Marinka Luznar and Marija Pavliha, and their 180 fellow singers, and above all, music and a life enriched by singing.” (written by Tomaž Faganel on the 42nd anniversary of the choir)
The Petrol women’s choir has been operating since 1977. In the 1993/94 season, Željka Ulčnik-Remic took over the artistic direction, who successfully led the choir until the end of 2013. In December of the same year, she handed over the artistic direction of the choir to Lovro Frelih , who led the choir a decade, until the 2022/2023 season, when he was succeeded by Jan Gorjanc Daniso .
Jan Gorjanc Daniso graduated from the Royal College of Music in London in composition and harp in 2016. He is currently active as a harpist and composer, and is actively gathering knowledge and experience in conducting and choir conducting. Most of his oeuvre is filled with vocal-instrumental works, including three operas. As a harpist, he is the recipient of awards at international competitions, he has performed in several prestigious halls, including Buckingham Palace, the Royal Festival Hall and the Gallus Hall CD as a soloist with the RTV Slovenia Orchestra. He currently leads three choirs, MPZ Musica viva Kranj – Primskovo, Grudnove Šmikle and ŽPZ Petrol. Together, we are sure that we know the path that will lead us, the ‘Prtrolejke’, as we call ourselves, to the wonderful lands of music in the future.
ŽPZ PETROL 2023
In the 2022/23 season, under the new management, we first began to carefully refine the Christmas repertoire. In December 2022, four Christmas concerts with the title ” Te dan je usega vese’ja! ” (named after the folk composition of the same name, arranged by Jan Gorjanec Daniso), were performed – in the church of St. Duh in Žubina, in the church of St. Jakob in Kamnik, in the church of St. Jakob in Ljubljana and in Piran, where we sang to accompany the procession of the opening of the nativity scene through Piran’s churches.
The year 2023 began very colorfully, as we began intensive preparations for the regional level presentation of choirs at the Institute of St. Stanislav. We successfully participated in it in march, after which intensive singing preparations for the annual concert began. We called the concert “Harp in the wind”, because our conductor Jan Gorjanc Daniso accompanied us on the harp while singing, which gave the event a special charm. We took the audience into the world of gentle sounds in the Križni hodnik in Piran, in Ljubljana at the Institute of St. Stanislav and in Radovljica in the church of St. Peter.
We started the new season 2023/2024 on an encouraging note. In September, together with the two choirs led by Jan Gorjanc Daniso, Grudnove Šmikle and MPeZ Musica Viva, and soloists Aco Bišćević and Dimitrije Savić, we performed a charity concert to help the victims of the catastrophic september floods, called “Let’s connect the banks “. Concerts were held in the church of St. Martin in Stražišče and in the church of St. Peter in Radovljica.
We are already practicing for this year’s Christmas concerts.
We also regularly attend intensive choral vocal technique workshops with sopranist and mentor Zala Hodnik.
There are many plans for the future as well. We strive to reach the listeners’ hearts with careful singing and open the door to the imagination of the inner worlds.
We have choir rehearsals every Tuesday from 6 to 9 p.m. in the premises opposite the Petrol official building in Ljubljana. New singers welcome!