Croatian composer, conductor and teacher Milko Kelemen died on 8th March in Stuttgart. He was 93.
Kelemen was a composition pupil of Stjepan Šulek, later studying in Paris with Messiaen and Tony Aubin and Freiburg with Wolfgang Fortner.
He held academic posts at Düsseldorf Conservatory and the Stuttgart Musikhochschule. He also founded the Zaghreb Biennale.
Rudolf Lück and Koraljka Kos divide the composer’s style into three periods: ‘an early corpus – Piano Sonata (1954) to Études contrapuntiques (1959) – written in a style influenced by folk music; an avant-garde period during which Kelemen experimented with musical structure; and, from Grand jeu (1982) onwards, a period marked by his discovery of a new, personal use of intervals and harmony. This last phase also assimilated earlier stylistic changes.’ (New Grove Online)
Kelemen was the recipient of many awards, including a Humboldt Scholarship, the Beethoven Prize of Bonn, an ISCM prize, the Vladimier Zazor Prize and the French Chevalier des Art et des Lettres.
Milko Kelemen: Changeant (1968)
Sources: Grove Online, Wikipedia