Throughout history, position of women in society was underestimated for a long period of time. Some reminders of this worldview are still present in the Croatian society and especially in culturally neglected areas that are left far behind European standards. From this point of view, we-Karlovac Piano Trio, as women ensemble, want to encourage other professional female musiciants of excellent level to perform and teach classical music in culturally neglected areas.

Performances in Croatian towns: Knin, Hrvatska Kostajnica, Petrinja, Belišće and Čazma

Karlovac Piano Trio was formed with idea of spreading classical music performances to the culturally neglected areas. Small towns: Knin, Belišće, Hrvatska Kostajnica, Petrinja and Čazma, despite of their natural charm, have poor cultural life. One of the reasons for this is war that Croatia went through at the end of 20th century and the cultural progress in this areas is taking very small steps. As local initiatives are forced to take care of more primary issues, cultural events, including classical music performances and children workshops are financially restricted and unsupported. Some of local population have never had chance to attended classical music concert. Their children are raised in cultural ignorance and their mothers are not expected to reach for professional achievements.

As a female trio ensemble, first target group that we will address are women. With our idea of spreading classical music events to rural areas we have motivated 11 highly qualified professional female musicians to participated in our Women Only Project and to form a string ensemble especially for this occasion. In this way we want to show power of women working together and to influence women living in rural areas to develop their creative expression. Also, we plan to record rarely performed female composers piano trios. Next important target group are children. Two of us, Selma Muftić-Pustički and Sanja Kociper have experience with children music workshops. Sanja Kociper has formed a special program for educating small children that has been approved by Croatian Ministry of Education.

The first step of our project is already undertaken, as we, as Karlovac Piano Trio, have contacted all 11 performers and we have arranged most of the program that we will perform. The music works that we will perform were written by next composers: T. A. Vitali, D. Pejačević, L. Spohr, A. Vivaldi, C. Schumann, K. Srebotnjak etc.
Also, we have contacted recording company Nota Bene Records, and they have determined their time organization, location and financial offer. We also organized critic, Zvonimir Bajević, that is willing to attend the events and write a review of our concerts.
Next step, if we will have the financial opportunity, is to contact the local cultural centers and to organize exact events dates. After this, we will begin together rehearsals.

If our idea is selected, in a year from now, we will have more highly qualified women motivated to explore ways to increase their individual artistic potential. In this way they will have enormous influence on their enviroment and they will have power to bring the art where it is known only by few. We will educate the children of areas that are far from cultural centers, encourage local women to express their potential and bring moral to all of the citizens. Except 5 towns that we have chosen for the performances, as we are unique artistic organization in town Karlovac, by recording professionally piano trios-we will make a difference in cultural history of town Karlovac.

There are several problematic issues that we address. One of them is cultural ignorance and lack of education in art and creative thinking. Other issue is position of women is society, that is closely connected to age discrimination. If we ponder into culturally neglected areas, we will find that gender rolls are still strictly divided. This problem can be also found in central areas of Croatia. If we refer to a career in a classical music, qualified women after forty have less chance to be involved in a soloist and chamber music events than women in their twenties. We want to encourage women of all age to express through art and not to feel limited by their home location. Also we will make cultural influence on few hundreds of children in chosen areas.

Karlovac Piano Trio is an young artistic organization, unique of this kind in Karlovac, that is always looking for new, innovative solutions for the old problems. We, three members of Karlovac Piano Trio (Vanda Janković, Marijana Pajić and Petromila M. Jakas) are never hesitating to go out of our comfort zone to achieve mutual goal. We feel that with together effort we have chance to move cultural borders of our society.

Personnel cost (performers for the events in 5 towns): 27.000 EUR
Equipment: 2.000 EUR
Room rental: 2.500 EUR
Accountant: 1.200 EUR
Professional recording cost (Nota Bene Records): 7.900 EUR
Travel expenses and accommodation: 3.200 EUR
Per Diem: 1.700 EUR
Communication and evaluation: 900 EUR

We would like to receive feedback or practical comments that are beneficial for developing our idea or ideas of this kind.