Ana Erčulj, artistic director of Vocal group Gallina

Ana Erčulj completed secondary education at Gimnazija Ledina as well as at the Conservatory of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana. She continued her studies at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, at the departments of Musicology and Cultural sociology, graduating in 2013. She was studying choral conducting with prof. Sebastjan Vrhovnik at Academy of music Ljubljana graduating in 2017. During her undergraduate studies she studied musicology in University of Utrecht (The Netherlands) and choral conducting in Kunstuniversitet Graz with prof. Johannes Prinz. Currently she is studying orchestral conducting on Academy of music Ljubljana with prof. Marko Letonja and prof. Simon Dvoršak.

As a singer and/or piano accompaniment she has cooperated with a number of choirs, such as Ljubljanski madrigalisti mixed chamber choir and Vox Carniolus. She has led various choirs and vocal groups, among them Sekstet komplet, Solalei, Biser female choir, Domžale chamber choir,… She had project concerts with Chamber choir Krog, male choir Vocal Academy of Ljubljana, female choir ČarniCe with horn quartet of Slovene Philharmonic orchestra, and Slovenian Philharmonic choir. As an assistant conductor, she worked with Academic choir Tone Tomšič of The University in Ljubljana and its conductor Sebastjan Vrhovnik. She has been working with Gallina vocal group since its beginnings and in a year 2014 they got second prize in category for vocal groups and second place in romantic category in a competition in Arezzo (Italy). In the same year they got first price in category for vocal groups in national choral competition “Naša pesem” in Maribor.

She closely collaborate with Slovenian composers (Aldo Kumar, Ambrož Čopi, Nana Forte, Andrej Makor, Mojca Prus, Katarina –Pustinek Rakar, Anej Černe, Matej Kastelic,…) that wrote music for her ensembles and she premiered them with great success.

To extend her knowledge and perfect her skills, she continually participates in seminars and workshops for choral conductors led by acknowledged Slovenian and foreign conductors: Martina Batič, Stojan Kuret, Marko Letonja, Johannes Prinz, Georg Grün, Ragnar Rasmussen, Steffen Schreyer, Martin Steidler, and Gary Graden. She participated in professional education and training for young choir managers and conductors at Polyfollia festival in France and took an active part in European academy for choral conductors in Graz in 2012. She also participated in two master classes for vocal groups held by German sextet Singer Pur and Finnish vocal group Rajaton.