Ivan Sverko

Ivan Šverko (concert accordionist) is currently among the most distinguished classical music performers of younger generation in Croatia. He is a winner of the foremost international accordion competition Arrasate Hiria (December of 2010, Spain) as well as laureate of the multi-instrumental competition Ferdo Livadić (October of 2011, Croatia.)
Such successes spawned a lot of performing opportunities – in just a few years Ivan has performed on some of the finest concert venues in his Croatia and abroad, most notably the Atrium Klovićevi Dvori in Zagreb, Rector's Palace in Dubrovnik, Great Hall of Belarus Philharmony (Minsk) and the Great Hall of the Finnish Symphony Orchestra (Helsinki). The classical music festivals where he has performed include events such as Osorske Ljetne Večeri, Večeri na Griču, Korvat Auki contemporary music festival, ExClam music festival. He has been invited to collaborate with various orchestras including Dubrovački Simfonijski Orkestar, Belarus Philharmonic Orchestra and Cantus Ensemble.

Ivan has started his accordion studies when he was nine years old. Since then, he took part of many major national and international competitions achieving outstanding results, winning over twenty first prizes. Due to his successes, he has received acknowledgements from various institutions : In the year 2005., he was nominated and chosen as the receiver of the award of the University Foundation due to special succes in his education and merits in artistic work. In the year 2008., he has received the recognition for the promotion of accordion department of the University of Pula. In year 2011., he has received Kesko award due to succesful studies at the Sibelius Academy.

September of the year 2011 is one of the most important milestones in his career so far; first prize on the Ferdo Livadić competition presented him with an opportunity to collaborate with one of the most-renowned Croatian composers, Mladen Tarbuk. who composed a piece for him and a chamber orchestra 4 Estancias. The piece has been premiereed with acclaims during the SGJ music festival in October, 2012. The piece has been published recently and represents a very important addition to the original repertoire for accordion in Croatia. The next performance will be held in the concert hall Vatroslav Lisinski, Zagreb sometime in the year 2014.
An ever-increasing number of upcoming concert projects awaits him, including recitals, accordion duo engagements as well as collaborations with orchestras. A recording and release of the complete accordion rendition of Bach's Goldberg Variations is planned for the near future.
In addition to his performing activities, as of recent Ivan has been chosen as a president of the jury on the annual Croatian Accordion Competition, he has been invited to teach accordion on several masterclasses and seminars. Moreover, in the last few year he has had many interviews for music-related magazines where he laid out his ideas for the further development of the already well-established concert accordion tradition and expressed his intent to contribute to best of his capablities to help and push the legacy of the instrument to the previously unreached level.