With his numerous projects, Filip Mercep continues to demonstrate his wide range of musical interests and performances. His story as a professional musician began in 2010 on Vienna’s Rathausplatz in front of 45,000 spectators during his performance in the final of the “Eurovision Young Musicians” competition with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Cornelius Meister. After Monika Leskovar in 1998, Filip Mercep was the second Croatian finalist to represent his country in this competition. Since then he has been active in the Croatian music scene, performing as a soloist at almost all major festivals and with most Croatian orchestras, and winning the most prestigious awards for young musicians in his country.
After graduating from the Zagreb Academy of Music in 2015, Filip Mercep began to be inspired by conceptual projects with electronics, which eventually led to his study of live electronics at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with audiovisual artist and electronic music composer Marcel Wierckx.
The promotion of Croatian music is an important part of Filip Mercep’s musical work. Performances of works by Croatian composers at his concerts throughout Europe and the United States delight audiences. He is currently working on the recording of four percussion concertos with the Croatian Radio Symphony Orchestra. So far, Ivo Malec’s “Vibrafonietta” and Igor Lesnik’s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra conducted by Pierre-André Valade have been recorded, as well as Igor Kuljeric’s “Concerto for Ivana” for marimba, piano and two percussionists. In 2020, Boris Papandopulos Concerto for Xylophone and Strings will follow.
Filip Mercep has already given master classes at the University of Miami, at Humboldt State University in California, at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, at the Nuremberg University of Music, at the Conservatoire national supérieur musique et danse de Lyon and at the Gdansk Academy of Music. In March 2020, he will give a concert of Croatian music and a master class on “Programming in music” at the University of Toronto (Canada) with his duo partner. Since 2017, Filip Mercep has been regularly holding his own master classes for marimba and since 2019, together with his colleagues Alex Brajkovic and Luka Batista, the “Live Electronics Summer Workshop”.
Filip Mercep currently lives as a freelance artist in Amsterdam and has been a “MarimbaOne artist” since 2016.