Piano Loop Festival 2026 in Split: Goran Filipec opens on 8 October

Goran Filipec opens the 13th Piano Loop Festival on Thursday 8 October 2026 at 20:00 in the Ivo Tijardović Concert Hall of the Hrvatski dom Split. This year's edition has three evenings and three pianists of different generations: after Filipec, the Japanese pianist Nagino Maruyama plays on 29 October, and Jan Niković, one of the most noted young Croatian pianists, closes the festival on 16 November (Dalmacija Danas). According to the organiser, the three recitals lead from baroque and classical works through the great romantic pieces to virtuoso music of the 20th century.

The three evenings

• Thursday 8 October, 20:00, Goran Filipec: one of the best-known Croatian pianists with an international career, he has played at Carnegie Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Teatro Colón and the Auditorium di Milano, and is known above all for Liszt and virtuoso repertoire. He has recorded 15 albums for Naxos. In Split he plays Friedman, Liszt, Papandopulo, Zajc, Dora Pejačević, Sarasate and Balakirev, several pieces in his own arrangements, among them the final march U boj! U boj! from Zajc's opera Nikola Šubić Zrinjski, Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen and Balakirev's Islamey.
• Thursday 29 October, 20:00, Nagino Maruyama: born in Japan in 1999, she first played in public with an orchestra at six and has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Salle Gaveau in Paris, the Palace of Versailles and the Izumi Hall in Osaka. Her programme: Chopin's Polonaise in A flat major, op. 53, Beethoven's Appassionata sonata, Ondine from Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit and Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, op. 24.
• Monday 16 November, 20:00, Jan Niković: born in Zagreb in 2001 and a graduate of the Zagreb Music Academy, he has played with leading Croatian orchestras and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and won the Ivo Vuljević award of Jeunesses Musicales Croatia as best young musician of 2025. His recital covers the widest span of the festival, from Purcell and Haydn through Liszt, Granados and Scriabin to Prokofiev, and ends with Stravinsky's Trois mouvements de Petrouchka.

Tickets and prices

A ticket for one concert costs 12 euros. The festival ticket for all three evenings costs 24 euros instead of 36 (Hrvatski dom Split). Both are sold online through the links on the Hrvatski dom website and at its box office at Tončićeva 1. Existing Hrvatski dom subscribers get the festival ticket for 20 euros, but only at the box office.

Getting to the hall

The Hrvatski dom is at Tončićeva 1, just north-west of Diocletian's Palace, about five minutes on foot from the Riva and about ten from the bus station and the ferry port. All three concerts start at 20:00. What to see within walking distance before the concert is in our Split guide.