Alfi Kabiljo (b. 1935)

Alfi Kabiljo (b. 1935, Zagreb, Croatia), composer, conductor, arranger, piano player, lyrics and libretto writer and producer. He attended the private music school of Croatian composer and music educationalist Rudolf Matz, and then graduated from the Vatroslav Lisinski Music School in Zagreb. He did further studies in composition in Paris. He also received a degree in architecture from the University of Zagreb. He is a composer with an international reputation and a very wide compositional range – he writes music for the theatre, film, and television, pop and chansons, as well as orchestral, chamber and solo works. His repertoire includes film and recording projects in Barcelona, Vienna, London (Pinewood and Twickenham), Los Angeles (Hollywood), Ljubljana, Madrid, Paris, Tokyo and most of all in Zagreb. He has written the music for about 80 feature films and over a hundred television episodes.

He has written numerous popular songs and chansons, which have been recorded worldwide, and has taken part in and won prizes at numerous popular music festivals, at home and abroad (including Zagreb, Split, Opatija and Krapina; Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv, Malta, Seoul, Palma de Mallorca, Cairo, Alexandria, Athens, Caracas, Mexico City, Curaçao etc.). His musicals are the most-performed in Croatia (Yalta Yalta has been performed about a thousand times) and for this reason the press has dubbed him “The King of the Croatian musical”. His comic opera "Casanova in Istria" first performed on 2. 10. 2009 by the Rijeka opera house was a great success.

He transcribed Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition for string ensemble (published by Doblinger, Vienna) and the piano album Young Leaves (Mlado lišće) of B. Kunc. At a number of winter Olympics, some of the best-known world skaters have performed to his music. He has won numerous prizes and awards (the Ivan Zajc Prize, the Josip Slavenski, two Pula Arenas, a City of Zagreb Charter, a Milivoj Koerbler Prize, a Lifetime Achievement Porin, a Status, the Kairos, a Boris Papandopulo so on). He is a past president of the Croatian Composers’ Association and is a member of the international organisation FIDOF.

Best known works include: Musicals: The Big Race, Jalta Jalta, Shaggy Life, The Butterfly Boy, Emperor Franz Joseph in Zagreb, The King Is Naked (Porin winner), librettos by Milan Grgić, The Red Island (Bulgakov-Kljaković-Grgić), The Marryage License (Kishon-Kušan), Who Sings Makes No Harm (Britvić), Krapci (Kaštelan), Madame Hamlet (Kabiljo-Maras).