Pija Hočevar Artist Interview

Pija Hočevar is a versatile musician and an experienced and successful flute teacher from Slovenia, currently based in LA, California. She finished her flute studies in Slovenia and in the Netherlands, but she continues to study and learn whatever brings her joy, fulfillment, and personal or professional growth. As @professor_pija on Instagram, she is spreading her love for music, learning, and exploration, while as CreatioByPija on Etsy, she is sharing her handmade 3D printed music- and other themed jewelry.

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Can you give us 5 career highlights?

The first career highlight is for sure my first win at an international music competition in Italy, at the beginning of my flute studies. This win gave me a boost for all future years of my flute studies.

The second highlight is receiving a Master's Award for my master's thesis IMPRO ZOOMTUBE-ING in the Netherlands, where I completed my 2nd Master's degree. This was a great recognition for the work and effort I put into the thesis as I worked full-time as a teacher in Slovenia so I could study full-time at the same time, and it was a very rewarding but at the same time challenging period of my life.

My third highlight is when I established and organized my first summer music school for flute, The FLUTEON Camp, which attracted many students from across Slovenia. I love helping others to achieve their goals, so the whole program has been designed to improve the fundamentals of the flute player and build on what is already known more healthily and naturally. In one week, we were able to achieve great progress, like richer and more controlled sound, clearer musical ideas, improved breathing and leading, and much more.

The fourth one is when I started to lead flute seminars and workshops across Europe. I had an opportunity to meet and inspire the growth of some amazing and talented students as well as great and dedicated flute teachers.

The last but certainly not the least one is the launch of my handmade 3-D printed musical- and other themed jewelry, Creatio by Pija. The initial battle of arriving on a new continent and into a completely different culture pushed me into »survival mode«. After some time, I started to think of the things I am also able to do besides teaching, and so my process started with sketches, which later on became designs, and afterward physical items.

 

How about 3 pivotal moments that were essential to creating the artist that you've become?

The first and very important »moment«, was my mother and her upbringing. She was singing to me and my siblings a lot and later on, I was also involved in a family ensemble together with my two brothers and my sister. There we were developing active listening, playing by ear, improvising, and learning tons of various repertoire by ear.

The second key moment was the start of my cooperation with a brilliant conductor, Miro Saje. He showed me new dimensions of the musical world.

But when I started my full-time teaching career, that was a moment that had and still has a great impact on me. I started to perform, to teach, and generally perceive the musical world on a different level because I was placed in an environment, where I had to start thinking of how I would like to »raise my flute children«, what is the healthiest, most playful, but still effective way of learning so we both enjoy the process... And at the end, I just wanted them to love music as much as I do, and to enjoy it when they play, despite the challenges that might occur on the way.

 

Why did you decide to move from Slovenia to Los Angeles? 

My amazing husband got a Postdoc position at Caltech in Pasadena, so we decided to go on this US journey together.

 

What are you doing in LA?

Maaaaany things! 🤩

In January this year, I opened my creative corner called Creatio by Pija.

Under its umbrella I:

• Teach flute, piccolo, recorder, chamber music, improvisation, and music theory;
• Lead flute seminars and workshops;
• Design and make unique 3-D printed musical- and other themed jewelry, while my music/flute gadgets are in a prep phase;
• Translate, transcreate, transcript, and subtitle various projects from Slovenian to English.

 

Yup, my life is pretty colorful and I love it that way. 🥰

 

What do you like best about performing and teaching?

Performances are moments that allow us to be fully present. And therefore I always do my best to take the audience on a deep musical journey, where they can surrender completely and enjoy in the moment, but they can also dream, or if they are tired, I am not angry if they fall asleep. 😉 With accompanying texts, I also encourage the audience to reflect, or I remind or inspire them to follow whatever makes them truly happy.

What I love about teaching is the possibility to teach students to first accept their uniqueness, and later on to be open, creative, curious, and independent. I love solving the problems they face, lifting them higher up and helping them achieve their dreams, let it be musical or others, because not everyone in my classroom is a »flute nerd«. 😉 And who would believe me when I say, for example, that my former students did their hairstyles and that they sketched the overall appearance of the flute trio and the quartet for our competitions? Probably no one, but I'm the lucky one, teaching some pretty amazing human beings! 😊

 

What does your schedule look like for the next 6 months?  

Very creative, full of travel, and plenty of learning! And definitely in the classroom inspiring new flute students and in the process of making/testing new products for Creatio by Pija.

 

What are your goals personally?  Professionally?

My goal personally, is to continue to follow myself and do whatever feels best/most aligned with me in the period I'm at.

But professionally, my goal is to earn and save enough money to start my 4th study and a new career that will combine my two biggest Loves – I won't tell you what it is, because I don't want to jinx it, but those who know me personally, know what those 2 L's are. ♥️

 

What inspires you the most in life?

Nature, animals, and children.

 

What has been your professional greatest challenge?

To stop forcing myself to be a part of something, where I cannot be 100% myself and also accept that I am worthy as a musician, even if I am not a member of a professional orchestra and I am "just" a teacher. Because even »just« a teacher, can be a badass musician and that's what I strive for! 😉

What has been your personal greatest challenge?

Survival. Music literally saved me and gave me the strength to stand up for myself and my dreams.

 

Who were your music mentors?  and what did you learn from them?

All of my music mentors had a certain degree of influence on my musical journey, but since there were so many, let me mention the ones that left the biggest impact.

I started learning the recorder, followed by the transverse flute taught by oboist Ernest Jazbec, who pushed me quite hard for 6 years and helped me a lot when learning and understanding abstract music theory.

Afterward, I continued 4 years on piano accordion with Ivanka Benković, who welcomed my musical learning of various compositions by ear and by sheet music. Meanwhile, I added solo singing lessons with pedagogue and conductor Aleš Makovac, which helped me enormously in the improvement of my breathing, my singing, and my flute playing.

After finally convincing my family (especially my father) of the career path that I wanted to follow, I, after a lucky coincidence, started having private flute lessons with Vanja Ivanković, who, with the help of a great repertoire and method books, helped me to further develop my flute technique.

Later on, when I got accepted at Music Academy in Ljubljana, Slovenia, my flute professor Matej Zupan let me choose the repertoire I wanted to play (which was always too advanced for my current abilities, but I couldn't resist), and that enabled me to progress faster and to attend competitions with other flute players/musicians that were my age or older, and be an equally (or sometimes even more) successful than them. He believed in my musical ideas and encouraged me to be a better musician overall.

There was another influential professor in Ljubljana, who was a mentor of my woodwind quintet Noobsayswhat – a horn player Boštjan Lipovšek. He constantly challenged us, and therefore under his mentorship, we were able to grow enormously and perform at amazing venues in Slovenia and abroad.

When it comes to expressing music, the biggest influence at the beginning was my mother, who comes from a family of enthusiastic amateur choir singers, who have great hearing and are very musical. She planted a musical seed deeply in me and my siblings and helped us nurture and develop it further. But when I started with my flute studies, I started to cooperate with one of the greatest conductors for concert bands, who is also a great pedagogue and a trumpet player, Miro Saje. In over 10+ years of joint amazing projects and concerts, he helped me grow as a musician, pedagogue, and a person.

After my flute studies, I briefly continued with Edgar Willems's Music Pedagogy studies, where two other pedagogues reminded and encouraged me to fully accept my musical persona and to share it inside and outside my classroom. They are wonderful Willems's pedagogues and musicians, Beatrice Chapuis and Christophe Lazerges.

Can you give us 5 quirky, secret, fun, (don't think too much about this) hobbies or passions?  

1. When I have an issue I try several times to resolve it/them in different ways on my own, and when it doesn't go any further, that's when I ask for or seek help. I am a real Capricorn in this area.
2. Baking desserts relaxes me, but I find it very difficult to follow recipes (I usually adapt ingredients because I don't have them or I want to transform a dish into a healthier one).
3. I am quite an energetic, open, and playful person, but what I love even more than being »the life of a party«, is silence. I adore being in an empty forest or on a beach and just listening to the sounds of nature.
4. I love animals. Like really, REALLY! When I was little I wanted to become a veterinarian, but life had a different plan for me.
5. I am probably most known for the words »Piki« that I normally use for anyone and anything that is cute (and small).

 

 What 3 things would you offer as advice for a young flutist?

1. Listen attentively.
2. Everyone knows something, so you can learn something from everyone. Thus, be open, try, and follow what feels right (for you).
3. Don't be afraid to share yourself and your music! The world needs to hear YOU.