Mak Grgic
Touted as a “gifted guitarist” by the New York Times, 2-time Grammy-nominated artist Mak Grgic is a star on the worldwide stage. An expansive and adventurous repertoire attests to his versatility and wide-ranging interests. As a testament to his versatility and wide-ranging appeal, in 2018 Mak was invited by legendary singer-songwriter k.d. lang to perform as the opening act for the North American leg of her Ingénue Redux Tour.
As both soloist and collaborator, Mak averages eighty-five performances a year. In North America, he has performed at Austin Classical Guitar; Beyond Microtonal Music Festival/Pittsburgh; the Dallas Opera for performances of Peter Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse; Dumbarton Concerts/Washington, D.C.; The Kennedy Center/Washington, D.C.; Mainly Mozart/San Diego; and numerous other venues and guitar societies across the globe.
An enthusiastic recording artist, Mak’s latest recordings, “Balkanisms" for Naxos Music plus “MAKrotonal” and Grammy®- nominated “Mak|Bach” for MicroFest Records, explore a vast repertoire spanning ethnic music, microtonal, new music and early music on re-fretted instruments, such as a “zig-zag fretted Bach prototype guitar” that allows him to create a “well- tempered guitar” for “Mak|Bach.”
Born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1987, Mak studied guitar in Zagreb with the revered Ante Cagalj at the Elly Basic Music Academy. By the age of 14, he was balancing his world champion status in karate with his love for the guitar. He completed a bachelor’s degree at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In the fall of 2017, and began the Artist Diploma program at USC, the first guitarist in the university’s history to be admitted to this program. Mak currently holds a full-time teaching position at University of South Carolina, and is a founder and CEO of Notey, a startup building a mobile music education game.
Mak Grgic is also proud to be involved with the Bosana Foundation, an organization that raises money for Bosnian youth. He regularly awards education-furthering scholarships to select students across South America.