Matija Fortuna

Matija Fortuna was born in 1985 in Krizevci, Croatia. At the Academy of Music in Zagreb in 2009 he graduated in Music Theory in the class of Berislav Šipuš, and in 2011  in Orchestral Conducting in the class of Vjekoslav Šutej and Uroš Lajovic. He won the Top scholarship for top students in the yeas 2010/2011. He spent the last two semesters of his conducting studies as an Erasmus exchange student at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna in the class of maestro Uros Lajovic. He finished the postgraduate conducting program at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna also in the class of professor Lajovic. He studied Opera Conducting under Konrad Leitner and Opera Accompaniment under Marius Burkert, and he did postgraduate studies in piano, chamber music and lied in the class of Roswitha Heintze. During this time in Vienna he worked with conductors Bertrand de Billy and Fabio Luisi.

From 2012 to 2014 he worked as an artistic associate at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna where he worked on several projects (Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor, Stravinsky’s Mavra and Pulcinella, Weber’s Der Freischütz). In 2015 he assisted maestro Georg Fritzsch in preparing Weber’s opera Der Freischütz at the Jopera opera festival in Jennersdorf. The same year he was a semi-finalist of the Lovro von Matacic International Conducting Competition in Zagreb. He has worked at the Academy of Music in Zagreb since 2015 as an assistant to conductor Mladen Tarbuk, and he works with the Symphony Orchestra of the Academy and prepares opera projects.

Since 2015 he has worked with the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka where he has conducted Andrea Chenier by Umberto Giordano, Werther by Julesa Masseneta, Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss, La Boheme by Giaocomo Puccini and Swan’s Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He has assisted in the preparation of Giulio Cesare by Georg Friedrich Händel and other opera and sypmhony projects.

He has worked with the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, Varaždin Chamber Orchestra and Croatian Chamber Orchestra and he often works with the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, Choir and Tamburitza Orchestra.

He has participated in many masterclasses in Croatia and the world, including the masterclass with Yuri Simonov in Moscow, where he had the opportunity to conduct the Moscow Philharmonic in 2013 and 2014. He has attended masterclasses by Nicolas Pasquet, Colin Metters, Georg Fritzsch, Mark Heron, Clark Rundell, Ralf Weikert, Gianluigi Gelmetti, David Reiland, Alun Francis, Karolos Trikolidis, Stephen Cleobury, Gerald Wirth i dr.