AnimotMUZIK Loški muzej Škofja Loka
Loški muzej Škofja Loka
Sunday, May 12 2024
18:00, Biljana Ristić: The history of the castle garden and the Ursulines (presentation)
18:30, Katarina Radaljac: Interspecies Sound Communication (lecture)
19:00, birds, Tea Vidmar, Žiga Jenko, Jure Boršič (live sound event)
AnimotMUZIK is a concert series that takes place in parks and gardens throughout Slovenia. Invited musicians perform in natural environments, where the sound of non-human animals becomes the score or inspiration for their creation. The cycle is based on questioning established methods of musical expression and invites the audience to attentive listening. Emphasising a mindful experience of the soundscape, it spreads awareness of the importance of nature for human culture and its influence on artistic creation. It addresses an inclusive, compassionate, and sound-rich possible future, where the concept of music is not limited to the framework of Anthropocene thinking.
Photo: Matej Tomažin.
The ecological concert series starts every year in the spring, starting on the first Sunday in May, and marks the International Dawn Chorus Day.
A joint concert of birds and music artists Teja Vidmar, Žiga Jenko and Jure Boršič will be introduced by a zoomusicologist Katarina Radaljac’s lecture and a guided tour with the presentation of the garden’s history and the life of the Ursuline nuns by Senior Curator of History Biljana Ristić.
Photo: Jerica Brečič.
Gardens have always been a constant part of people’s everyday life. Over the centuries, they had different roles, either vegetable gardens meant livelihood for the population, or as decorative gardens they were a place of rest, contemplation and socializing for the wealthier residents of manors and manors.
Both Škofja Loka Castle and the castle garden next to it have been mentioned in written sources since the Middle Ages (the castle from the 13th century and the garden from the 14th century). The garden was maintained and arranged by serfs as part of the pressure they performed for the Bishop of Freising as the owner of the Škofje Loka lordship. It is not known today what its original design was and when the linden trees were planted. It is believed that they are between 230 and 300 years old. Until the middle of the 18th century, the garden was protected only by a wooden fence, after which it was given a stone wall.
At the end of the 19th century, Škofja Loka Castle was bought by the Ursuline sisterhood and converted into a girls’ school. The castle garden was also used for classes, as the children studied in the linden grove in the summer, learned about botany, and during the warmer summer months they exercised and played basketball in the garden. In addition to educational and sports activities, church processions (Marian procession, Corpus Christi Day), birthday celebrations and the end of school years were also held in the garden. During all the activities, a few animals kept them company in the castle garden, such as Kokica the parrot, Janko and Moni the roe deer, rabbits and Fuchsi the fox.
During World War II, the Ursuline sisterhood was expelled from the castle and Škofje Loka, and the Germans set up occupation offices in the castle. After the end of the war, a camp for captured Slovenian Home Guards was organized at the castle, then a prison for German prisoners of war and, until 1958, a penitentiary. In 1959, the Loški Museum moved into the castle, and a few years later an ‘open-air museum’ was established in the Castle Garden, which is still on display today.
Biljana Ristic
Senior Curator of History
Museum of Škofja Loka in Loka
Other events in the AnimotMUZIK series:
Krater
Sunday, May 5, 2024
5.08 (morning), birds, Tea Vidmar, Jure Boršič and a l l j a, (live sound event) and
Krater Collective: Tea party from a raging construction pit
Arboretum Volčji Potok, Boljkova gallery
Saturday, May 11, 2024
19.00, Katarina Radaljac: Interspecies Sound Communication, (lecture)
19.45, birds, Eduardo Raon, Tea Vidmar and Jure Boršič, (live sound event)
The event is free with the payment of a ticket to the Arboretum.
MGLC Plečnik auditorium, Tivoli park
Sunday, May 12 2024
5.08 (morning), birds, Eduardo Raon, Žiga Jenko and a l l j a, (live sound event) and
Ana Čavić: A thread without end, Act IV (Dawn) (performance)
Production: Cona, in collaboration with Loški muzej Škofja Loka.
