DEAN KOPRI
Dean Kopri is an academic musician from Croatia where he works as
a tamburitza
(Croatian national instrument) teacher in a music school and as a
conductor of the most successful junior tamburitza orchestra in Croatia
and beyond. He has been awarded with eight "Oskar of
Knowledge" awards for exceptional achievements in a music field based on his
work with young musicians, and has won numerous first prizes in national and
international competitions as both a mentor and a conductor including Annual award of the Croatian Society of Music and Dance Educators in 2021 and Annual award in recognition of exceptional achievements (2019).
Born in 1986 into a musical family, Dean started learning music from a young
age playing piano and tamburitza, but was soon composing his own music. Dean
likes to say that he inherited two things from his parents - a love of
conducting from his mother, and a passion for composing from his father.
Dean has composed a number of compositions for various ensembles, with several awarded
by the Croatian Tamburitza Association (Tambura Variations in 2017 and Memento
in 2020). Together with his sister, Dean wrote a pop-rock musical "Legend
of a Rose Town" which premiered in 2015. He also composed a soundtrack for "A
Midsummer Night's Dream" for Honey-tongued Theater Productions, London, and
for the musical show "Kiteenarium" which was performed in Kitee, Finland,
in 2017 for Finland's 100th birthday. Between 2014 and 2019, Dean was a music
director of Kitee International Music and Art Festival in Kitee, Finland.
Dean's latest work is the soundtrack for "Propagation: Top Squad" video
game by Wanadev studio from Lyon, France, and he is featured as a guest musician
on Peter Connelly's "Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony" album with
his version of a Tomb Raider-inspired theme. Dean is currently working on a music for Tomb Raider: The Myth of El
Hawa project featuring Jonell Elliott (voice of Lara Croft in Tomb
raider 4-6).
