The KGBL (Conservatory of Music and Ballet Ljubljana) Choir was founded in 2010. After four years, it split into two bodies – the KGBL Choir, attended by KGBL students who don’t attend orchestras, and KGBL Chamber Choir, which consists of approximately 40 singers, who are eager to be challenged, who wish to expand their vocal technical knowledge, and who want to take their repertoire to the next level of quality and tackle more demanding choir compositions. The chamber choir’s repertoire is diverse in genre and style, ranging from Renaissance to Contemporary music. They also often commission new compositions, which they then promote at concerts and competitions on Slovenian as well as foreign stages.

The KGBL wind orchestra is composed of young musicians, students of the Ljubljana Music and Ballet Conservatory, many of whom are recipients of national and international awards. Under the baton of Andrej Zupan, the orchestra performs a classical wind instrument repertoire, as well as arrangements of different genre pieces. The ensemble’s systematic approach to working with young musicians helps them to acquire musical experience during study and provides the foundation of the orchestra’s high quality performances. Many concerts at home and abroad (Greece, Serbia, North Macedonia) testify to the good work of the ensemble.

Tom Varl (1998) enrolled at the theoretical department of the Conservatory of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana (KGBL) in 2013. In 2015, he began attending solo singing lessons at the KGBL music school. In 2017, he started studying composition at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana (AG) in the class of prof. Vito Žuraj. Singing in the KGBL Chamber Choir fascinated him, so he started conducting. He leads the vocal group of Ivan Cankar. In 2019, he successfully presented himself at the International Conducting Competition Aegis carminis in Koper and passed the entrance examinations to the choral conducting studies at the Academy of music. In addition to his studies, he also teaches solfeggio at the Edgar Willems Music Centre in Ljubljana and at the DoReMi Music Center, and since September 2020 he has been a ballet accompanist at the KGBL. As a conductor and vocal teacher, he has collaborated with various ensembles, such as the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir, Chamber choir of the Ljubljana Conservatory of music and Academy of Music, Academic choir Tone Tomšič andf the University of Primorska Mixed Academic Choir