Academy Members

Nikša Gligo was born in Split on 6 April 1946. In 1969 he graduated in comparative literature and English language and literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and musicology in 1973 at the Faculty of Philosophy of Ljubljana University. His study trips abroad: he went to the Musicology Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Cologne University (1972/1973) on a DAAD scholarship, then to Salzburg to the Seminar in American Studies: American 20th Century Music (1976) and for a one-month study trip in the United States (1979) on the invitation of the State Department.

From 1975 to 1977 he was programme secretary, and from 1977 to 1979 art director of the Music Biennale, and he took part in the organisation of that festival until 1991 (from 1983 to 1989 as programme secretary, from 1989 to 1991 as programme director), and again between 2002 and 2007 (head of public relations).

The two books brought him the annual Josip Andreis Award of the Composers’ Society of Croatia (1985, 1987). A DAAD research scholarship enabled his stay in West Berlin in 1983/1984, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awarded him a scholarship for the academic year 1985/1986 in Freiburg i.B., where he was also visiting professor at the Musicological Seminar of the Albert Ludwig University.

He began to teach in 1981, when he became part-time assistant at the Department of Musicology and Musical Publications of the Music Academy of Zagreb University, in which he worked for thirty years (from 1998 as full professor with tenure). He was the Academy Assistant Dean (1991–1993) and spend two terms as Head of the Musicology Department (1998–1991, 1998–2004). He also taught outside Zagreb: at the post-graduate studies of information science at the Faculty of Organisation and Information Science of Zagreb University in Varaždin (1996–2001), as visiting professor at the Musicology Department of the Music Academy of Sarajevo University (1998–2011), and as teacher at the post-graduate Cultural Studies Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Rijeka University (2005–2007).

He has also held many posts in professional associations: from its foundation he was in the management committee of the Croatian Musicological Society (1992–1998), member of management committee of the Croatian Composers’ Society (1992–1994), and from 1989 to 1994 he was in the Executive Committee of the European Conference of Promoters of New Music (ECPNM).

Especially outstanding is his work connected with semiotic research: from 1994 he was member of the Executive Committee of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS/AIS), from 1994 to 1996 he was vice-president of the Semiotics Section of the Croatian Association of Social and Humanistic Sciences, from 1996 to 1999 he was member of the Central Board of the Croatian Semiotic Society. With Vladimir Biti, Nenad Ivić, Hrvoje Turković and Josip Užarević, he headed Signs of History in Croatia, a research workshop organised by the Croatian Semiotic Society (1995–1998). From 1998 to 2001 he was in the Management Committee of the Croatian Humboldt Holders Club.

His rich bibliography includes cooperation with the music encyclopaedias, New Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (from 1997), Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (from 1998) and the Croatian Encyclopaedia (1998–2004), many translations of academic works from foreign languages, among them books by Charles Rosen (Arnold Schönberg, 2003) and Hermann Danuser (Glazba 20. stoljeća /Twentieth-Century Music/, 2007). He was on the editorial board of many periodicals: Zvuk (1989–1990), International Review of Aesthetics and Sociology of Music (from 1992), Arti musices (1992–1996), Muzika (from 2002), and in 1993 he joined the editorial council of the periodical MusikTexte.

Nikša Gligo participated in the work of many cultural and research bodies. He was member of the Cultural Council for Music of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia (2001–2003), member of the Vladimir Nazor Prize (2002–2003) committee, president of the Cultural Council for Music of the Ministry of Culture (2003–2004), member of the Regional Council of Humanities of the National Council for Science (from 2010), member of the Doctoral Programmes Committee of Zagreb University (from 2011), member of the Science and Critical Thought Promotion Centre of Croatia (from 2012) and member of the professional commission for the humanities in the Committee for Granting of State Awards for Science (2012).

His work has been richly awarded: Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Ministry of Culture (1992), Order of Danica Hrvatska with the Face of Marko Marulić (1997) and the Croatian discography Porin Prize for commentary on the compact disc Zagreb 900 (1994) and for Anđelko Klobučar’s CD (2012). In 2006 he was awarded the Plaque of the Music Academy in Sarajevo for contribution to the development of the Music Academy and the art, science and teaching of music in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is also recipient of the Seven Secretaries of SKOJ Award for musical reviews (1969). In 2006 he became honorary member of the Croatian Association of Music Theorists.