Vocal group
The FE Vocal Group consists of students and staff from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.
The vocal group FE consists of students and staff of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, who like to sing fun Slovenian and popular foreign songs, either in chorus or accompanied by the kWh band.
The FE Music Group consists of students and staff from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. The current line-up consists of two saxophones, a trumpet, keyboards, two guitars, a bass guitar and drums. We mainly play rock, funk and jazz music, and we do both covers and original compositions.
The band performs together with the FE Vocal Group at university events, graduation ceremonies and awards ceremonies.
About the vocal group and the kWh band
History
The first choir at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering was founded in 2000 on the initiative of the then dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Prof. Tadej Bajd. However, the idea of forming a choir consisting of the staff and the students of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering had been in the making for a long time.
At the first rehearsal on 18 May, three candidates for the choir, Julijan Stanič, Franc Bergelj and Dejan Križaj, all three professors at the faculty, gathered together with the choirmaster, Mr Mark Tiran. At the very next rehearsal, two more joined. At the first performance, at the graduation ceremony on 8 June in the Chamber Hall of the University of Ljubljana, we had already sung both anthems, Zdravljica and Gaudeamus Igitur. This was the first performance of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering Chamber Choir. The choir has been strengthened with the arrival of new student singers, but the core of the choir has always been the staff of the faculty. Although the ensemble was mixed, we cultivated the repertoire of male choirs with a female alto in the tenor line. The number of members fluctuated around sixteen, and students usually left the choir after graduation, but new ones came in with the new school year. We regularly took part in graduation ceremonies, prize-giving ceremonies, graduates’ receptions, New Year gatherings, charity concerts and other occasions. We released two CDs, first Gaueamus, Elektra! in 2003 and then Slovenske narodne in umetne pesmi in 2005.
In 2012, we decided to rejuvenate the choir by forming the Faculty of Electrical Engineering Vocal Group. With the addition of several female singers from both staff and students, we shifted our repertoire towards compositions for mixed ensembles, often with the addition of instrumental backing. Under the direction of Mark Tiran, we continued until the end of 2018. After a fruitful 18 years of joint music-making at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, we realised that it was time to upgrade again, and invited the young choirmaster Mr. Lovro Frelih and the student instrumental group Kilovatna ura to join us, and started to form a new vocal-instrumental ensemble. As it is quite common among electrical engineering students to find a number of musicians who are proficient in various instruments or vocals, there is no doubt that the new group will be an exemplary continuation of the musical activities at the faculty and will enhance them even further.
FE Music Group
It all started as a preparation for an experiment, when Igor Čarman asked himself how an acoustic guitar would sound in a silent room, where the tone master Samo Beguš works. Since it would be a shame to experiment with just two acoustic guitars, students who play other instruments were invited to participate.
Even before the first recording, the experimental band was already a classic rock-funk ensemble with guitars (Slobodan Marković, Igor Čarman, Aleš Berkopec), bass (Luka Zidarič), percussion (Gal Sajko) and saxophone (Simon Rezelj).
After half a year and a few rehearsals, the group did the experiment in the silent room twice: once without bass, the other without saxophone. They made a good hour’s worth of recordings with top-quality equipment and the experiment grew into the idea of a faculty band. There was no problem with the name of the band, as it changed from week to week – Silent Room, Silent Bass, Kilowatt Hour, 3600000 J, Milliwatt Cuckoo – until it turned into our familiar kWh.
The repertoire started with pop and rock covers, but eventually veered closer to funk and not necessarily light jazz. Of all the original ideas that came up in rehearsals, the one that stuck out was Hands on the Floor. Tomaž Dobravc wrote the base verse, but the band added five verses and made music that was a joy to play and – as many fans made clear – to listen to.
All the members enjoyed working in the band and, as yet, there are no regulations for the functioning of the band at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. These two facts may not be related, but certainly – without needing to – many colleagues at the faculty helped the band to function. They were indispensable to the band, whether it was encouragement, space, cables or rocking in front of the stage.
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University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering Tržaška cesta 25, 1000 Ljubljana