BIOGRAPHY

 

 

Saxophone player with a degree in classical music, specialized in the United States on Berklee College of Music (Boston). In his career he has had many successes in different areas of music.

From classical music, popular music, jazz, soul, funk, playing in various ensembles from small groups to orchestras, from club music (even playing on the street) to concert and sport halls, in fifteen years of his career, Igor Gerzina has worked with almost all important people on the Croatian music scene. Some of them are known outside Croatia such as: jazz vibraphonist Bosko Petrovic, jazz composer Miljenko Prohaska, guitarist Elvis Stanic, arranger Silvije Glojnaric, etc.

He has had more than 70 discography releases, around thirty video spots, the whole line of television shows and programs, appearances as a guest player in radio shows. He has won many awards, among which are two Porin awards, two Status awards, Crni macak award and many nominations. He has also got several awards on State competitions.

As a producer of Croatian national Radiotelevision Jazz Orchestra he worked with some of european and american artists as: Lasse Lindgren, Lars Moeller, Deborah Carter etc.
 

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His musical beginnings go back to when he was seven years old. His first contact was with the violin with which he won the fourth prize on the state competition. After the second year in music high school, he switched to saxophone and he graduated in classical music in the class of professor Dragan Sremec at the Music Academy in Zagreb.

During that period he participated in several courses by the famous classical saxophonist Professor Claude Delangle (CNSM, Paris).

Being an accomplished student, he was given the opportunity to perform as a soloist accompanied by the Zagreb Philharmonic in the Concert for Saxophone and Orchestra by Pavle Despalj. The performance was conducted at the Croatian Music Institute by the maestro Despalj himself.

After his graduation, he won the scholarship by the Berklee college of Music and he specialized under Bill Pierce (Art Blakey & Jazz Messengers) and Frank Tiberi (Woody Herman Big Band). In the USA he met the jazz guitarist Elvis Stanic, who he later worked with on two discography projects.

Since he returned to his homeland he has worked with the whole string of ensembles, especially with the singers of popular music. He has also worked as a studio musician and composed.

Occasionally, he has also worked with the musicians outside Croatia, as for example Hubert Tubbs, the former lead singer of the group Tower of Power.

He writes compositions for the pop singers, music for the Croatian movie “Five Minutes Of Tenderness”.

He also started his own pop band. They published two albums, around ten video numbers and they were nominated for the Porin award. He was the leader of the bands in TV shows on National television and some other local TV networks.

He has made many jingles and for TV and radio shows.

Since 2003, as a permanent member of the Croatian Radiotelevision Jazz orchestra, he has worked with many names on the jazz scene, he has taken part in studio recordings, concerts, TV shows and since 2009 he has been composing and making arrangements for the orchestra. The composition Bionicle for the Croatian Radiotelevision Big Band was performed on the concert “Selected compositions by Croatian composers” which was transmitted alive by the European Broadcast Union (EBU).

Igor Gerzina released two solo albums, one of which “Sax Album” was nominated for the Porin award in two categories, and one composition was used as a musical theme for TV series.

 

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