On July 7, Vinko Globokar celebrates his 80th birthday. Five years ago, on the occasion of his 75th birthday, Pierre Boulez, Sylvain Cambreling and André Richard send these birthday wishes.


Pierre Boulez

My relationship with Vinko Globokar has always been, above all, a personal one. I have always appreciated his point of view, whether it was a matter of the spontaneity involved in translating his musical ideas, or his constantly renewed attempts to ensure that artistic life is firmly, sometimes even vehemently engaged with a society that supposedly endorses invention. Even though these ideas are often far from coinciding with mine, and even if our vocabularies don’t observe the same rules, I am constantly astonished by his persistence in a just struggle.

The outcome now is a body of increasingly well-controlled works, always inventive, and in touch with the era and its principal problems. This preoccupation is surprising, since many musicians with some sort of social perspective have sunk into a kind of anti-elitist populism which does little to aid their cause. In Vinko Globokar, essentially, one finds a critical attitude that admits no compromise, and retains all the strength and exceptionality of an individual who feels impelled to create his own universe. It’s certainly not the easiest path, nor the most saleable, but it is by far the most courageous and encouraging one.


André Richard

Cher Vinko,
When I listen to you – and for many years now, you have been constantly recounting moving and gripping events from the book of your life history – then I sense the primal current of your words. I can understand them. They have been lived, and carved in stone.

When I have the good fortune to make music together with you, then I rejoice at your true mastery.
When I hear your music, I sense an earthquake, as if opening the book of your life history. I look forward eagerly to the next opportunity to listen in, once again, to your music and your words.

Avec toute mon amitie André Richard


Sylvain Cambreling

My dear Vinko,
Do you realise that our first meeting goes back to 1966? At the time I was a trombonist (!) at the Conservatoire; I went to listen to a concert at the Domaine Musical, and there I discovered both the trombonist and the composer.

I didn’t know then that 25 years later I would be led to conduct your music. But I had already sensed and understood your engagement: artistic, musical, social and political. Back then you were already uncompromising. I liked that – it impressed me. Later, when I got to know you, I came to understand that this came not from dogmatism, but from great honesty, both intellectual and humane.

You love people, you love your art, and you love your ideas. There’s no messing about with that. Your natural generosity, your language and your enthusiasm, your curiosity and your tenacity, your research and your work: all these have given us exceptional works – exceptional in both their form and their content. Vinko, your music is just like you: rich, generous, surprising,‘questioning, true! Thanks for that. Thanks for having given us that. To have been able to participate in premiering some of them has been a privilege for me.

With friendship, Sylvain Cambreling


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