Singer, story-teller and collector, LJOBA JENČE has a subtle feeling for the beauty of live cores and archetypal memory surviving in old songs and fairy tales through which she connects with the worlds of nature, memory of the space where a tradition originates from, and with the developmental contents of man's consciousness leaving an indelible seal on each and every fairy tale and song.To Ljoba Jenče, a consciously undertaken revival of folk singing is one of the simplest yet deep ways of awakening to universal and individual values of life. She is a campaigner for the development of natural voice and introduction of spiritual heritage into complex pedagogy as an invaluable means of conserving national identity.

"To hear Ljoba Jenče sing is to sense the vibration of some hidden cords buried deep inside, cords sometimes unknown even to ourselves yet unmistakably telling us what we are, where we belong, what blood is pulsing through our veins and what it is we share with the rest of the human race." (Helena Grandovec, the "7D" weekly, Maribor 1998).

A freelance artist, she lives and works on the shores of intermittent Cerniško jezero /lake/. She collects folk songs from Notranjsko, sings and narrates to children and adults, leads, at home and abroad, workshops of folk singing and of the art of narrating fairy tales, explores new dimensions of the etheric tone and of healing by voice. She regularly participates in the international festival Idriart at Bled and the Borl castle, Slovenia, in Nepal and Tibet. She is currently working on a project for children entitled "Four Seasons in the Embrace of Four Archangels" and "A Castle of Light". She is preparing an original sound score for a film on Cerkniško jezero. She perfected her singing in England.

She has about 100 public performances a year.

In 1990 she organized and produced an audio cassette for "That Other Music", namely, "Folk Singers and Fiddlers from Notranjsko". Between 1990 and 1996 she edited eight broadcasts "Slovenian Soil in Song and Word" for the folk music section of Radio Slovenia, editor Jasna Vidakovič. In 1994 she headed the first Slovenian symposium of fairy story tellers on Kozjak and has since been organizing regular fairy story workshops. In 1995 she edited an audio cassette entitled "Jezerci" - Folk Songs from Cerkniško polje (Community of Cerknica, Ministry of Culture of Slovenia).

Discography:

• LJOBA JENČE: Ljudska pesem poje v meni "A Folk Song is Singing in Me", Folk songs from various Slovenian provinces, with comments on their origin and a translation into English. (CD/MC with a booklet; self-financed publication 1992)
• LJOBA JENČE: Zapoj skozi prstan letnih časov "Sing to Me through the Ring of Seasons", Folk songs for children. (CD, self-financed publication 2000)
• LJOBA JENČE: Srčna moč – The Springs of Heart, Slovene Folk Songs to Celebrate Festivities of the Year (CD self-financed publication 2001). bioacoustics (Tomi Trilar, Boris Romih)
• LJOBA JENČE: Lepote modrosti – Meeting the Sacred Sound of Tibet and Ancient Slovenian Songs, Društvo za podporo Tibetu (SAZAS DPT CD 001)
  

Present also in the following:

• FOLK REVIVAL IN SLOVENIA, The Druga godba Festival Live recordings, Ljubljana 1986-1997 (Druga godba, CDG 003, 1998)
• HYPERBOREA CD 1999 - interpretation in the company of jazz musicians
• Modern Folk Music in Slovenia vol. 1, Folk Slovenia Cultural Society 2000 (KD FS CD 01)
• MOdern Folk Music in Slovenia vol. 2, Folk Slovenia Cultural Society 2001 (KD FS CD 02)
  

Contact:

Ljoba Jenče, Dolenja vas 70, 1380 Cerknica
Tel.: (01) 709 63 10, 041 430 224
E-pošta: Ljoba.Jence@guest.arnes.si

Ljoba Jenče, translated by Helena Smolej