Draft:Dragan Karolić

Dragan Karolić (Cyrillic: Драган Каролић) is a Serbian-German flutist, singer, musicologist, and composer. He was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (present day Serbia), on 18 February 1960, into a family that was not musically inclined. At the age of 14, he enrolled in a music school "Kosta Manojlović" where he started to study flute. Within a few years, he demonstrated remarkable results by winning several music competitions. His professor, Ljubomir Dimitrijević, who was the founder of the first Yugoslav early music Ensemble Renaissance, developed in him a strong affinity for early music and historically informed performance on period instruments, thus predetermining the direction of his musical development.

After attending the Belgrade Music Academy, he received his Performer's Diploma in 1983, and then went to Rome and Vienna to specialise traverso flute and recorder. As the scholarship recipient from the Yugoslav Government, he graduated from the Società Italiana del Flauto Dolce in Rome in 1986 (studying with Prof. Claudio Rufa), and from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna in 1989 (Prof. Helmut Schaller). His further studies were in London with Nancy Hadden and Lisa Beznosiuk. In addition to playing the flute, Karolić also studied singing, piano, and composition, further deepening his musical education.

Between 1979 and 1991 Karolić was a member of early music ensembles Renaissance, Musica Antiqua, Baroque Consort, and Elisabethan Consort with whom he toured extensively and published several CDs. He was active as a soloist, and was a member of the Association of Musical Artists of Serbia (UMUS). In 1989 he published his first solo album "Baroque Flutes", and in 1991 (together with Predrag Gosta) he co-founded the Belgrade Early Music Festival. He also collaborated with ensemble New Trinity Baroque.

In 1991 he moved to Germany, where he was the solo traverso flute and recorder player at the Telemann-Kammerorchester Michaelstein in Blankenburg. In Germany, he continued his advancements with renowned artists such as Konrad Hünteler, Wilbert Hazelzet, Barthold Kuijken, Hans Martin Linde, and Clas Pehrsson. In 1996 Karolić moved to Halle. In 1998 he got engaged as a flute teacher at the "Georg Friedrich Händel" Conservatory in Halle, where he stayed until 2008.

Dragan Karolić's interest towards singing brought him to study voice with Emma Kirkby, David Thomas, Klaus Mertens, Barbara Schlick, Harry van den Kamp, Jill Feldman, and Isabelle Poulenard. In 1998 he founded ensemble "Cantare e sonare", and with it he released his first vocal CD album entitled "Bella Italia".

Throughout his 40-year career, he has performed hundreds of concerts in 20 countries across Europe and America and has recorded numerous records, cassettes, and CDs.

As a composer, until 2024 Karolić has written around 40 compositions in Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and modern styles, including three operas, three symphonies, two concertos, and various works for choral and chamber ensembles, as well as a number of pieces for solo instrument or voice. Notable successes include the Divertimento for wind quartet (premiered in Blankenburg in 1996), the children's opera "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (premiered in Berlin in 2004), and the Hexophony for flute and piano (premiered in Paris in 2006). The fore-mentioned opera "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" has achieved international acclaim, having received multiple performances at the Belgrade National Theatre (translated into Serbian as "Snežana i sedam patuljaka").

Furthermore, Karolić began to engage in musicological research and music publishing, releasing his editions through publishing houses Furore Verlag, Mediterranean Press , and Music Edition Baroque Opera. He edited over 600 works, most of which represent first modern publications. Since 2022 he is part of the editorial team of the Parnassus Arts Productions and the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival, under the artistic direction of Max Emanuel Cenčić.