OUR PARTNERS

Pavao Mašić (Šibenik, 1980), winner of the Grand Prix Bach and the Audience Award at the Bach Organ Competition in Lausanne (2006), is developing a successful career as a concert organist and harpsichordist. The diverse interests of his artistic work encompass the repertoire of Baroque and Romanticism - with an emphasis on the works of J. S. Bach, as well as French and Croatian composers - which, combined with thorough research work, as well as a constant search for the most expressive interpretations, result in impressive, virtuosic and highly regarded performances. After completing his music studies at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, he continued his postgraduate studies in organ in Lausanne with Kei Koito and harpsichord in Freiburg with Robert Hill. He receives additional artistic impulses from working with prominent artists such as Bob van Asperen, Anđelko Klobučar, Ton Koopman, Laurence Cummings, Daniel Roth, Luigi F. Tagliavini and Christoph Bossert. In the period from 2008 to 2013, he continuously improved his skills with the most prominent harpsichordists of today, such as Pierre Hantaї, Christophe Rousset and Skip Sempé, and in October 2013, as a scholarship holder of the French Academy in Rome, he went on a study stay dedicated to the interpretation of French music for the harpsichord at the Villa Medici, where since 1803 the most prominent French artists - winners of the famous Rome Prize - have been intensively dedicating themselves to artistic work. Thanks to the Royaumont Foundation, he trained from 2015 to 2018 at workshops dedicated to D. Scarlatti, F. Couperin, C. Franck, O. Messiaen and French organ music - in the inspiring surroundings of the Royaumont Abbey and the Royal Chapel in Versailles - with prominent artists such as Blandine Verlet, Aline Zylberajch-Gester, Pierre Hantaї, Jean-Baptiste Robin, Daniel Roth, Vincent Warnier and Thomas Lacôte. Since 1999, Mašić has been working as the principal organist of the Church of St. Mark in the Upper Town in Zagreb, where he continues the rich tradition of organ playing that has been continuously recorded in this historic church since 1359. At the same time, he works as an associate professor at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, where he develops a wide range of pedagogical activities and educates new generations of harpsichordists and organists. He has also been working as the principal organist of the Croatian National Theatre Opera in Zagreb for about twenty years. He regularly performs throughout South America, Russia, Europe and Israel (Bogota, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Perm, Basel, Lausanne, Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, Freiburg, Zaragoza, Porto, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tel Aviv). He participates in the work of the juries of international competitions, is the head of the Organ Summer School that has been held in Šibenik for over 30 years, and as the artistic director of the St. Mark's Organ Festival, he is responsible for the concert guest appearances of about twenty world-renowned organists who visited Croatia for the first time. The quality of his artistic work has been recognized with more than 35 important foreign and domestic awards (Ivo Vuljević, Kantor, Jurica Murai, Ivan Lukačić, Orlando, Porin, Milka Trnina, Zagreb City Award), among which stand out awards at international organ competitions in Lausanne, Zaragoza and Pula, and he is the only Croatian candidate to have participated in the famous world organ competition in St. Albans (UK) in more than 50 years of its existence. He records for Croatian Radio Television and Croatia Records; his diverse discography includes five solo albums awarded with a total of 11 Porin awards, of which two albums: 1685. Bach, Handel, Scarlatti (2011) and Bach: The Art of Fugue (2017) were declared the best classical albums of the year. In the Cathedral of St. Anastasia, he assisted the emeritus Danijela Roth. He performed a solo solo concert on the eve of the feast of St. Chrysophan and the Day of the City of Zadar on 23. 11. 2024 and an Advent concert together with mezzo-soprano Nero Gojanović on 15. 12. 2024.