Klemen Grabnar graduated in musicology at the University of Ljubljana in 2009. In the same year, he has been engaged at the Institute first as an expert associate, then as a young researcher to work on his PhD dissertation. In late 2015 he completed his PhD at the University of Ljubljana with a dissertation on parody or imitation masses in Hren choirbooks. Since 2016 he is a research fellow at the Institute of Musicology where his work is focused primarily on the liturgical music in Inner Austria in the second half of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He has wide-ranging interests in other periods of music history as well as other subject areas (see Research area, above), including the Digital Humanities (especially music encoding).
Klemen has made several study visits (e.g. Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance, Florence, Italy; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, Germany; Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Austria; and Universitätsbibliothek Graz, Austria) and regularly presents his findings at international musicological conferences. Since 2019 he is a research mentor, supervising a PhD student.
He is a member of the Slovenian Musicological Society (2017–2021 member of the executive committee of the Society) and American Musicological Society.
liturgical musical repertoire of the Slovenian Lands in the long sixteenth century, liturgical plainchant, music education to c. 1630, music and Catholic Reformation, migration of musical repertory, music manuscripts, polychorality, musical borrowing.
Three most relevant articles/chapters in the last 5 years (2021–2026):
- Grabnar, Klemen. “From the Northern to Southern Holy Roman Empire: Michael Praetorius’s Earliest Latin Magnificat in Bishop Hren’s Choirbook.” In Translatio Musicae: Circulation and Use of Music in Early Modern Europe, edited by Lars Berglund and Maria Schildt, 15–31. Handlingar, Historiska serien, 43. Stockholm: Kungl. vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademien, 2025. https://doi.org/10.62077/thxbei.vdfqy6.
- Puentes-Blanco, Andrea, Metoda Kokole, Philippe Vendrix, María Gembero-Ustárroz, Rebecca Herissone, Christian Troelsgård, Klemen Grabnar, Birgit Lodes, Kateryna Schöning and Vilena Vrbanić. “The Monumental Edition in the Digital Age: Creating a Sustainable Future.” Journal of new music research 53, nos. 3–4 (2024): 312–324. https://doi.org/10.1080/09298215.2024.2373998.
- Grabnar, Klemen. “Uglasbitev kantika magnifikat Simoneja Gatta na primeru skladbe Magnificat primi toni.” Muzikološki zbornik/Musicological Annual 59, nos. 1–2 (2023): 135–151. https://doi.org/10.4312/mz.59.1-2.135-151.
Latest critical music editions:
- Grabnar, Klemen, ed. Selected Works from the Hren Choirbooks. Vol. 4, Jean Guyot de Châtelet, Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis. Monumenta artis musicae Sloveniae, Supplementa, 5. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, 2026. https://doi.org/10.3986/9790709004676.
- Grabnar, Klemen, ed. Selected Works from the Hren Choirbooks. Vol. 3, Simone Gatto, Three Masses. Monumenta artis musicae Sloveniae, 64. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, 2024. https://doi.org/10.3986/9790709004638.
Three most relevant earlier articles/chapters:
- Grabnar, Klemen. “Traces of Counter-Reformation music in the Slovenian lands.” Arti musices 49, no. 2 (2018): 303–317. https://dx.doi.org/10.21857/ygjwrcjkey
- Grabnar, Klemen. “Pietro Antonio Bianco’s Missa Percussit Saul mille: A Precursor of the Habsburg Imperial musica politica of the Seventeenth Century.” De musica disserenda 13 (2017): 119–132. https://doi.org/10.3986/dmd13.1-2.05.
- Grabnar, Klemen. “So gornjegrajski rokopisni zvezki nastali na Kranjskem?” Muzikološki zbornik/Musicological Annual 53, no. 1 (2017): 55–79. https://doi.org/10.4312/mz.53.1.55-79.
- Music migrations in the early modern age: the meeting of the European East, West and South (September 1, 2013 - August 31, 2016)
- Old traditions in new vestments: Musical and textual reworkings in the performing practices of liturgical music (fundamental research project • July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2023)
- Researches in the History of Music in Slovenia (research programme • January 1, 2015 - December 31, 2021)
- Digital Presentation of the Long-Sixteenth-Century Church Music Connected to Carniola (fundamental research project • September 1, 2020 - August 31, 2024)
- Aesthetics behind the concert life of Ljubljana in the 19th century: 1794-1872 (fundamental research project • May 1, 2009 - April 30, 2012)
- ZRC SAZU Research Grant (2015: Odense, Denmark; Kassel, Germany; Florence, Italy)
- The Student Prešeren Award of Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana (2009)