NIGHT VISIT, 8 January 2023
In addition to radio plays, the international project B-AIR led by Radio Slovenia also produces new music for the youngest audiences. On 21 January 2023, the Symphony Orchestra Concert for Babies and Toddlers by Slovenian composer Larisa Vrhunc premiered as the first Slovenian orchestral work aimed at the youngest audience. On the night of Saturday to Sunday, we are presenting the project with its creative team, with a night visit by composer Larisa Vrhunc, composer and head of the Serious Music Editorial Gregor Pirš, and musicology PhD and music editor Primož Trdan.
NIGHT VISIT, 12 February 2023
The guest of the broadcast is the writer, columnist and screenwriter Nina Kokelj. She is the award-winning author of five novels, a young adult novel and numerous picture books, and is also an expert contributor to the B-AIR project led by Radio Slovenia, which creates new audio content for the youngest and vulnerable groups. The project is developing Hospital Radio Pediatko, where Mrs. Kokelj is also contributing scripts for new radio plays. Night-time host Anamarija Štukelj Cusma spoke to Nina Kokelj about writing for children and youth and her latest projects.
NIGHT VISIT, 12 March 2023
In the Night Visit broadcast, Anamarija Štukelj Cusma hosts set designer, architect and sound artist Irena Pivka, and composer, sound artist and producer Brane Zorman. Together, the two prolific creatives have founded the Cona Institute for Contemporary Art Processing, where they create several intermedia, music, and sound projects under the common title radioCona. They also collaborate in the international project B-AIR, for which they have created Chitter-Chatter, a radio play for babies and toddlers.
NIGHT VISIT, 11 June 2023
The Hospital School was established in 1951 with the purpose of providing schooling to sick children hospitalized in Ljubljana. It preserves and strengthens the life perspective of sick children and breathes meaning into their daily lives, while also facilitating the creation of other content next to schoolwork and beyond the hospital walls, such as the “camps of sun and joy”, and the “hospital olympics”. Professor Manja Žugman, head of the hospital school departments of the Ledina Primary School is joining the Night Visit broadcast to tell us more about the mission and operation of the school.
NIGHT VISIT, 9 July 2023
The B-AIR project, which pays special attention to new audio content for the youngest and vulnerable groups, has created a collaboration with pupils from the Kamnik Centre for Education, Rehabilitation and Training. Five children created four Sound Self-Portraits where they explored ways of expressing themselves in the field of sound and tested their ideas and notions of the “sound reflection of the self”. The project's mentor, directress Ana Krauthaker, told us more about her work with the young artists in the Night Visit.
NIGHT VISIT, 10 September 2023
At the end of August, the B-AIR project led by Radio Slovenia hosted a symposium titled Sound and Music in the Experience of Babies, Toddlers and Vulnerable Groups. One of the symposium's guests was Jaka Škapin, a London-based artist who works as a musician with vocal and movement improvisation in health and care environments. Since 2016, he has been co-creating the Dancing with Parkinson's program, involving Parkinson's dancers and their loved ones in workshops and performances. He spoke about the importance of music for health and wellbeing on the Night Visit broadcast.
NIGHT VISIT, 15 October 2023
Zalka Drglin holds a PhD in women's studies and feminist theory, is a professor of education, an MSc in sociology of culture, a researcher on the culture of childbirth, a counsellor for women in mental distress during pregnancy and after childbirth; and she is also a nature lover, mother and poet. In the Night Visit broadcast, Zalka Drglin talks about her research work, which includes studies on the importance of the sound environment during childbirth, and about her artistic work.
NIGHT VISIT, 12 November 2023
Katarina Kurtjak is a pianist, music teacher and composer with an MA in musicology. She has been teaching piano, music theory and singing for more than 15 years and organises music workshops for preschool children. She also works with children with autism spectrum disorder. In the framework of the B-AIR project, she has cooperated with psychologist Manca Kok in regard to the effects of music on the social and emotional development of children with autism spectrum disorders. She talks to host Anamarija Štukelj Cusma about her extensive experience and new teaching methods.
NIGHT VISIT, 19. December 2023
Whispers of Memory
This occasion of the Night Visit will be a little different. We will be joined in the studio by Ana Obreza, dramaturgist and creator of the radio play Whispers of Memory. She’ll be taking us to the Lož Valley and asking the question: “How is the history of a place and the people who live there revealed through sound memory? What meanings and memories are inscribed in the soundscapes and what sounds reveal them to us?”Find out more on how the participatory documentary radio play Whispers of Memory, about the stories inscribed in the soundscapes of the Lož Valley, came to be in this week’s Night Visit.
NIGHT VISIT, 9 January 2022
Tomaž Rauch is a composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist. He is particularly interested in folk music, which he first engaged with in depth in the band Trinajsto Prase. He also played in the band Črnobela Muzika, and is currently a member of the Marko Banda that released a new album last year. His compositional work is based on exploring the sounds of individual acoustic and folk instruments, he writes music for choirs and adaptations of folk songs and tunes, as well as original music for fiction, animation, and documentary films. He is also interested in children’s music. In addition to music for puppet shows and radio plays, he has created an original sound play for babies. He will talk about all this with Anamarija Štukelj Cusma in the Night Visit on Sunday.
NIGHT VISIT, 13 February 2022
Boris Šinigoj is a musician and philosopher. Alongside the guitar and lute, he also plays oriental versions of the lute, such as the Afghan rubab. He is the founder and artistic director of the ensemble Nova Schola Labacensis, whose repertoire includes European medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music, as well as music from other cultures like the African, South American and Oriental. On his Sunday appearance in the Night Visit, Boris Šinigoj will talk to Anamarija Štukelj Cusma about how music relates to philosophy, its role in the past and how it influences people today.
NIGHT VISIT, 13 March 2022
The project B-AIR works with a variety of experts to discover how sound affects people’s lives. Today, though, our focus will be on insects rather than humans. These animals namely also communicate with each other through sound. Their sound world is largely inaudible to the human ear, but with the help of modern laser technology, we too can hear the signals used by insects to communicate. Not only that, we can also mimic these signals, using them, for example, to interrupt insect communication and prevent harmful insects from breeding. This and more will be explored with our guest for the night, prof. dr. Andrej Čokl, one of Slovenia’s most prominent entomologists and an expert in bioacoustics or the acoustic communication between animals.
NIGHT VISIT, 10 April 2022
Biologist dr. Tomi Trilar is a renowned expert on animals, especially insects and birds. He is the head of the Invertebrate Curatorial Office at the Natural History Museum of Slovenia and the head of the Slovenian Archive of Animal Sounds, whose main goal is to collect recordings of the singing and calling of all sound-producing animal species living on our territory. Tomi Trilar told us more about what each sound means in the animal kingdom, and what techniques biologists use to capture these sound waves in a conversation with host Anamarija Štukelj Cusma on Saturday night.
NIGHT VISIT, 8 May 2022
Biologist Tilen Genov, MSc is a distinguished marine mammal expert. A keen researcher, he several years ago founded the Slovenian Marine Mammal Society Morigenos, which among other subjects studies dolphin populations in Slovenian waters. How do large marine mammals communicate with each other? How do they make sounds? Tilen Genov revealed the meaning of individual sounds and the techniques employed by biologists to capture them in a talk with Night Visit host Anamarija Štukelj Cusma on Saturday night.
NIGHT VISIT, 12 June 2022
What is zoomusicology, what kind of music do animals make and how can humans connect with them in sound art are the questions we will be looking to answer on Saturday night. The Night Visit will feature Katarina Radaljac, MA in musicology whose research focuses on the music of non-human animals and interactions with them, and Uršek Slivšek, graduate psychologist and mentor of workshops for children and youth “On the Track of Interspecies Communication”. Host Anamarija Štukelj Cusma spoke to our guests.
NIGHT VISIT, 10 July 2022
The guest of this week's Night Visit is percussionist Franci Krevh. A member of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the percussion group Slovenian Percussion Project STOP and the contemporary music ensemble MD7, he is also the initiator of many interesting projects such as the Slovenian Philharmonic's Family Season Ticket, the Percussion Circle music workshops, and the Sound of Stone Festival taking place in Štanjel for the third time this summer. Night Visit host Anamarija Štukelj Cusma will be talking to Franci Krevh about the sound made by stone, its frequency, and the impact it can have on people.
NIGHT VISIT, 14 August 2022
Sound is our first perception of the outside world, and the art of listening begins in the prenatal stage already. How important is sound art for babies, and what kind of life journey does a child who grows up in a safe sound environment get will be illuminated in a talk with PhD psychologist and psychotherapist Katarina Kompan Erzar on Sunday night. We will also present the project of new sound plays for babies being developed within the framework of the international project B-AIR.
NIGHT VISIT, 9 October 2022
The spoken, rational language is preceded by the language of intonation, rhythm, different registers and melody. It is the auditory stimulation of music, words, phonemes and the sound of objects in the environment precisely that has a significant impact on a child’s early emotional, cognitive, social and motor development. To this end, the international B-AIR project has developed a radio play titled Musical Kitchen for babies and toddlers between 6 and 18 months of age. In the Night Visit broadcast, the creators of the play and the accompanying text presented their work: author of the libretto and directress Tajda Lipicer, composer of the original music Alenja Pivko Kneževič, and the project’s expert advisor, psychology PhD and musician Katarina Habe.
NIGHT VISIT, 13 November 2022
Developing sound art for babies and toddlers is one of the missions of the international B-AIR project led by Radio Slovenia. To this end, several radio plays for the youngest audiences have recently been created, including the story of the sea that has lost its song. The play was designed by directress Saška Rakef, original music was composed by Bojana Šaljić Podešva, and the project was assisted by PhD psychologist Katarina Kompan Erzar. All three authors presented sound art for babies in a talk with the Night Visit host Anamarija Štukelj Cusma on Saturday night.
NIGHT VISIT, 11 December 2022
Opening the Doors to the Art and Science of Music was the title of an international symposium held at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana at the end of November. At the symposium, various experts presented how artistic research in different musical disciplines can be linked to scientific research in the field of music pedagogy. Karolina Šantl Zupan, Associate Dean for Scientific and Artistic Research at the Academy of Music, flute player and professor, talked about the topic in the Night Visit broadcast.
NIGHT VISIT, 11 April 2021
Reflections on music – organised sound shaped the Night Visit broadcasts on the second Saturday of each month, in the B-AIR show series produced within the framework of the eponymous international project where Radio Slovenia, in collaboration with international partners, explored the meaning and role of sound in our lives. The first episode focused on singing. The guests, psychologist and psychotherapist dr. Katarina Kompan Erzar, psychiatrist and psychotherapist dr. Miran Možina, and head physician Igor Mihael Ravnik, M.D., discussed the positive aspects this activity brings to the circle of life.
NIGHT VISIT, 9 May 2021
Our culture is strongly rooted in visual perception, but sound – although often overlooked – is just as important for human development. In our daily lives even more so, especially given the fact that we perceive sound with every cell of our body. And so it is with music, too. Host Anamarija Štukelj Cusma spoke to Katarina Habe, PhD in psychology and musician, about listening and reacting to sound and music from early childhood to late old age.
NIGHT VISIT, 13 June 2021
The topic of the Night Visit broadcast is the voice, its timbre, texture, pitch, frequency... The correct use of the voice in speaking and singing, as well as the harmful and excessive use of the voice was discussed by clinical psychologist and cognitive behavioural therapist Petra Bavčar, MSc.
NIGHT VISIT, 11 July 2021
Hearing. Listening. What’s the difference? What is the process of listening? Is it a skill that we learn? When do we start to perceive sound around us? These and similar questions were answered by dr. Katarina Zadnik, Assistant Professor at the Department of Music Pedagogy at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana.
NIGHT VISIT, 8 August 2021
Helena Korošec is a science PhD, professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, and a Peter Hess certified expert in the fields of sound massage and sound communication for children. She talks to Anamarija Štukelj Cusma about the positive effects of sound in supporting health, emotional stability, increasing awareness of all the senses, and improving communication.
NIGHT VISIT, 12 September 2021
An aficionado of classical, jazz, and traditional music, singer, harpist, composer and performer, Zvezdana Novaković is also an artist of exploration and acceptance. With great desire and curiosity, she travels the world discovering the potential of the human voice and its impact on human growth. She integrates the positive effects of sound into various artistic practices, while also engaging wholeheartedly with projects for the youngest.
NIGHT VISIT, 22 September 2021
How can scientists contribute to improving the research process and achieving outcomes that will lead to better patient care, more effective prevention and treatment of brain disease? How can we ourselves contribute to the advancement of science, prevention, recognition and treatment of degenerative diseases? Prof. dr. Maja Bresjanac, M.D., from the Laboratory of Nerve Regeneration and Plasticity of the Institute of Pathological Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, talked about this on the Night Visit broadcast.
NIGHT VISIT, 10 October 2021
Nataša Cetinski and Gašper Troha are academic musicians and graduate comparativists, a cellist and clarinettist, who founded a private music school and obtained a diploma in teaching according to principles of the renowned music pedagogue Edgar Willems. How to approach music in a natural way, how to enable children to learn difficult things easily, and how to encourage their holistic musical development while taking into account their individual characteristics were the themes of this Night Visit episode.
NIGHT VISIT, 14 November 2021
The research group of the international B-AIR project, led by Radio Slovenia together with international partners, organised a conference in Portbou in Catalonia, Spain, in September 2021 to explore the use and potential of radio today. The regular biennial meeting, dedicated to the work of Walter Benjamin, brings together researchers, artists, architects and philosophers. Dr. Rajko Muršič, Professor at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana and B-AIR project associate, also participated in the meeting with his lecture Electronic Media and the Listening Milieu in the Early Years of Radio Ljubljana.