Bojan Adamic

Slovenian composer, musician, conductor. Adamic was in Ribnica in the Duchy of Carniola in Slovenia on August 9, 1912. He attended Poljane Grammar School, attended the National Piano Conservatory at 13, and received his degree in piano from Ljubljana Music Academy in 1941, having already completed courses in organ, trumpet, and composition. Somehow he managed to graduate from a course in law at the same time. He played accordion and saxophone in a jazz band up until the opening of the Second World War. During the war, he served with the Slovenian partisans and was wounded in a German attack. Following the war, he maintained a frantic and widespread career, conducting the RTV Slovenia Big Band, scoring hundreds of films and stage plays, and creating music for the Slovenian song festival. He also wrote many pop songs, chamber pieces, children's songs, operas, and music for radio plays. He carried on just as busy a performing career, playing concerts as pianist for a variety of orchestras around Europe and North America. He was given scores of awards and honors in his native country and throughout Europe, and he served as head of numerous musical organizations including the Slovenian Composers Association. One major event colored his personal life badly. On August 31, 1950, he shot Zdravko Rus, a friend of Adamic's underage mistress Breda Kruh, in the back. That same year, he was tried for the killing and sentenced to a suspended sentence of one year in prison for manslaughter. His career did not seem to suffer, and his work continued without respite for much of the rest of his life. He received the coveted Preseren Award, Slovenia's highest cultural honor, in 1979, for his body of work. He was also a noted photographer and was the subject of several major exhibitions. He retired from RTV Ljubljana, where he was director of music production and head of the music department, in 1981. He died November 3, 1995, in Ljubljana, survived by his wife Barbara and their daughter Alenka. Since 1999, The Association of Slovenian Bands has awarded annually the Bojan Adamic Award. A memorial plaque was dedicated to his memory in 2000, at his birthplace in Ribnica.