Academic Choir France Prešeren Kranj

The France Prešeren Academic Choir Kranj was founded in 1969. During the choir’s fruitful period of existence, several world-famous names have cooperated with the choir such as Uroš Lajovic, Fabio Luisi, Eric Ericson, John Rutter, Ariel Ramirez, Gary Graden, Riccardo Muti and Valerij Gergiev.

The choir has held more than 870 performances and concerts so far in which it has performed more than 880 vocal and vocal-instrumental compositions of all styles, composed by both domestic and foreign authors, including first performances of numerous Slovenian choir compositions. The choir often participates in festivals and competitions both home and abroad. The choir has performed in the large majority of the European countries as well as in Israel, Mexico, the United States of America, Argentina, Chile and Russia. Since 2010 the choir has been led and conducted by Matej Penko.

Matej Penko was born in Postojna in 1971. After graduating at Ljubljana Academy of Music he started working at Postojna Music School where he teaches piano and music lessons. He has gained choral experience in Chamber Choir Ave and Chamber Choir of RTV Slovenia. Before assuming leadership of the France Prešeren Academic Choir Kranj, he was working at Postojna Mixed Choir with great confidence and ambition.