���غ���

Baroque violinist Bojan Čičić has performed and recorded as a soloist and collaborated with several important early music ensembles in Britain and elsewhere; he also leads his own specialist group, the Illyria Consort. Čičić also plays the viola d'amore and a modern violin on occasion. He has made several recordings with others and leading his own Illyria Consort, beginning with music of Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli in 2017.

Čičić was born in Zagreb, then part of Yugoslavia, in 1979. He attended the Zagreb Academy of Music, studying modern violin, and went on to the Paris Conservatory and earned a postgraduate degree in 2005. He then moved to England for studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, earning a master's degree there in 2006. It was at this time that Čičić switched primarily to Baroque violin; his teacher at Guildhall was the noted historical-instrument player Rachel Podger. Soon after graduating, Čičić began to find places in various Baroque ensembles in Britain and beyond, and in 2009, he made his recording debut with Charivari Agréable as leader and solo violinist on the album Giuseppe Torelli: The Original Brandenburg Concertos.

Čičić also performed with Les Talens Lyriques, the Academy of Ancient Music, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and he began to move into conducting, leading a performance of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France. Increasingly, he has been featured as a leader and as a soloist in music with solo parts, performing with the European Union Baroque Orchestra, Florilegium, and the Arcangelo Consort, among others. With his own Illyria Consort, Čičić has specialized in lesser-known music of the Baroque era from the Habsburg Empire and the Venetian Republic, recording concertos by Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli (for Delphian in 2017, notching one of his most popular recordings) and Giovanni Giornovich. As a soloist, he became known to recording buyers through a duo recording, with Podger, of music by Bach for two violins and orchestra. Čičić led the Academy of Ancient Music, backing and duetting with recorder prodigy Lucie Horsch, on the 2019 recording Baroque Journey, and that year, he was named leader of the Academy of Ancient Music. Čičić and the Illyria Consort released Pyrotechnia: Fire + Fury from 18th-Century Italy on Delphian in 2021. They returned on Delphian in 2022 with a pair of albums, Johann Jakob Walther: Scherzi da Violino and La Notte: Concertos and Pastorales for Christmas Night. Čičić is professor of Baroque violin at the Royal College of Music in London. ~ James Manheim