About
Prohaska Big Band
In preparation for a special centennial concert honoring one of Croatia’s most celebrated composers and arrangers - the late Miljenko Prohaska, his family (daughter Miljenka Prohaska and granddaughter Darka Kragović) joined forces with composer and musician Lana Janjanin, the event’s organizer, to create an unforgettable tribute on March 26, 2025, at the Vatroslav Lisinski Hall in Zagreb.
As the project took shape over several months, an important question emerged: which orchestra would perform Prohaska’s iconic music? Lana Janjanin took the initiative to assemble an “all-star big band,” featuring top-tier Croatian and Slovenian musicians, handpicked from the two ensembles with which Miljenko Prohaska had worked most closely – the Jazz Orchestra of Croatian Radiotelevision and the Big Band of Slovenian Radiotelevision – along with several distinguished freelance artists.
The result is a newly established orchestra, the Prohaska Big Band, dedicated to preserving and performing the timeless works of Miljenko Prohaska and continuing to celebrate his enduring musical legacy.
© Matej Grgić / HDS
About
Miljenko Prohaska
Miljenko Prohaska was a Croatian composer, double bassist, arranger, and conductor (Zagreb, September 17, 1925 – Zagreb, May 29, 2014).
He initially studied double bass and graduated from the theoretical and teaching department of the Zagreb Academy of Music in 1956.
He began performing in 1939. He was a member of the Zagreb Philharmonic, the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras of Radio Television Zagreb, and the Orchestra of Yugoslav Radio Television.
From 1955 to 1989, he was the chief conductor of the Dance Orchestra of Radio Zagreb (today the Jazz Orchestra of Croatian Radio Television),
which he co-founded in 1946–47.
He founded the Jazz Orchestra of the Croatian Armed Forces, which he led from 1996 to 1998. A pioneer of jazz in Croatia, he was a member of the Zagreb Jazz Quartet and the Zagreb Jazz Quintet, both led by Boško Petrović. He also founded and led his own ensembles and orchestras, and played with many renowned jazz musicians such as John Lewis, Johnny Griffin, Ted Curson, Lucky Thompson, Art Farmer, Slide Hampton, Art Taylor, and others, as well as in international jazz orchestras led by Gerry Mulligan and Clark Terry.
He performed abroad (across several European countries and the USA) at concerts, jazz festivals, and in radio and television programs. At the Monterey Festival in 1967, as a guest conductor, he led Don Ellis’s orchestra, which performed his compositions.
Prohaska is considered one of the most esteemed Croatian composers of jazz, light orchestral, and popular music. His most famous composition is “Intima” (1962), the most frequently played jazz piece by a Croatian composer. It, along with other compositions (e.g., Concerto No. 2 in Three Movements, Concertino for Jazz Quartet and Strings, Dilemma), has been performed by many international ensembles and orchestras (e.g., Modern Jazz Quartet, USA Orchestra).
He was particularly distinguished as an arranger and orchestrator (e.g., co-authoring the first Croatian rock operas Gubec-beg (1975) and Grička vještica (1979) with librettist Ivica Krajač and composer Karlo Metikoš).
He composed music for about fifteen films, most notably the score for Branko Ivanda’s film "Gravitacija ili fantastična mladost činovnika Borisa Horvata" (Gravitation or the Fantastic Youth of Clerk Boris Horvat, 1968), which won the Golden Arena at the Pula Film Festival, and the music for the film and TV series Kiklop (1982) by Antun Vrdoljak.
His original compositions have been released on several music albums (Opus 900, 1994; The Best of Miljenko Prohaska & Big Band HRT, 1997; Miljenko Prohaska, 2006). He received the “Vladimir Nazor” Award (1988) and the Porin Award (1995) for lifetime achievement.
© Davor Hrvoj