Early years

Dešpalj was born in Zadar

Zadar

Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Population of the city is 75,082 citizens...

, Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

 and graduated from the Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 (cello with L. Rose

Leonard Rose

Leonard Rose was an American cellist and pedagogue.Rose was born in Washington, D.C., his parents were immigrants from Kiev, Ukraine...

, chamber music with F. Galimir

Felix Galimir

Felix Galimir was an Austrian-born American-Jewish violinist and music teacher.He studied with Adolf Bak and Simon Pullman at the Vienna Conservatory from the age of twelve and graduated in 1928. With his three sisters he founded the Galimir Quartet in 1927 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary...

 and Juilliard Quartet). He also took master classes with P. Casals

Pablo Casals

Pau Casals i Defilló , known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time...

, P. Fournier

Pierre Fournier

Pierre Fournier was a French cellist who was called the "aristocrat of cellists," on account of his elegant musicianship and majestic sound....

 and A. Navarra

André Navarra

André-Nicolas Navarra was a French cellist and cello teacher.-Early life:...

, and did two years of postgraduate study with G. Kozolupova at the Moscow Conservatory

Moscow Conservatory

The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...

.

Career

Dešpalj has performed all over the world, including performances at festivals in Gstaad

Gstaad

Gstaad is a village in the German-speaking section of the Canton of Berne in southwestern Switzerland. Part of the municipality of Saanen, Gstaad is known as one of the most exclusive ski resorts in the world....

, Lockenhaus

Lockenhaus

Lockenhaus is a town in the district of Oberpullendorf in Burgenland in Austria.- History :The town was part of Hungary since the foundation of the kingdom in the year 1000. Since 1898 the name Léka had to be used because of the Magyarization by the government in Budapest...

, Kuhmo

Kuhmo

Kuhmo is a town and a municipality in Finland and is part of the Kainuu region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . It has a borderline of with Russia....

 and Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik Summer Festival

The Dubrovnik Summer Festival In a unique ambient of open and closed scenes of Renaissance-Baroque city of Dubrovnik a rich programme of classical music, theatre, opera and dance is presented.-External links:*...

 also in some of the most prestigious concert halls, such as Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

, Royal Festival Hall

Royal Festival Hall

The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...

 in London, Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...

, Amsterdam′s Concertgebouw

Concertgebouw

The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...

, Moscow Conservatory Hall etc. He was soloist with orchestras including Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin is an orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1946 by American occupation forces as the RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester . It was also known as the American Sector Symphony Orchestra...

, Dresden Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra

The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra is a Dutch symphony orchestra based in Rotterdam. Its primary venue is the concert hall De Doelen. The RPhO is considered one of the Netherlands' two principal orchestras of international standing, second to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam...

, Dutch Radio Orchestra, Washington National Symphony

National Symphony Orchestra

The National Symphony Orchestra , founded in 1931, is an American symphony orchestra that performs at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.-History:...

, Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Melbourne, Australia. It has 100 permanent musicians. Melbourne has the longest continuous history of orchestral music of any Australian city and the MSO is the oldest professional orchestra in Australia...

 and others, under baton of eminent conductors such as Roberto Benzi, Sergiu Comissiona

Sergiu Comissiona

Sergiu Comissiona was a Romanian conductor and violinist.-Early life:...

, James Conlon

James Conlon

James Conlon is an American conductor and the current Music Director of the Los Angeles Opera.-Early years:Conlon grew up in a family of five children on Cherry Street in Douglaston, Queens, New York. His mother, Angeline L. Conlon, was a freelance writer. His father was an assistant to the New...

, Vernon Handley

Vernon Handley

Vernon George "Tod" Handley CBE was a British conductor, known in particular for his support of British composers. He was born of a Welsh father and an Irish mother into a musical family in Enfield, London. He acquired the nickname "Tod" because his feet were turned in at his birth, which his...

, Günther Herbig

Günther Herbig

Günther Herbig is a German conductor.Born in Ústí nad Labem, Czechoslovakia, Herbig studied conducting at the Franz Liszt Academy in Weimar in 1951 with Hermann Abendroth. He later was a student of Hermann Scherchen, Arvid Jansons, and Herbert von Karajan...

, Hiroyuki Iwaki

Hiroyuki Iwaki

was a Japanese conductor and percussionist.-Biography:Iwaki was born in Tokyo in 1932. Shortly after he entered an elementary school, he moved to Kyoto due to his father's transference. He came to play the xylophone at nine years old...

, Andrzej Markowski, David Zinman

David Zinman

David Zinman is an American conductor and violinist.After early violin studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota and took up conducting at Tanglewood...

 and others. Among his chamber music partners were Gidon Kremer

Gidon Kremer

Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...

, Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

, Heinrich Schiff

Heinrich Schiff

Heinrich Schiff is an Austrian cellist and conductor. He studied cello with Tobias Kühne and André Navarra and made his solo debut in Vienna and London in 1971...

, Philippe Entremont

Philippe Entremont

Philippe Entremont is a French pianist and conductor. He has made many recordings during his career, notably one in 1961 of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic....

, Yuri Bashmet

Yuri Bashmet

Yuri Abramovich Bashmet is a Russian conductor and violist.Direct patrilineal descendant of Besht.-Biography:Yuri Bashmet was born on 24 January 1953 in Rostov-on-Don in the family of Abram Borisovich Bashmet and Maya Zinovyeva Bashmet . "Father's mother, Tsilya Efimovna, studied singing at the...

, Tabea Zimmermann

Tabea Zimmermann

Tabea Zimmermann, born on October 8, 1966 in Lahr, , is a German violist.She began learning to play the viola at the age of three, and commenced piano studies at age five...

, Irena Grafenauer

Irena Grafenauer

Irena Grafenauer, , is a Slovenian flute player and soloist, a pupil of Karlheinz Zöller and Aurèle Nicolet....

, Dmitry Sitkovetsky

Dmitry Sitkovetsky

Dmitry Sitkovetsky is a Russian violinist and conductor.- Early life :Dmitry Sitkovetsky was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, to violinist Julian Sitkovetsky and pianist Bella Davidovich. His father died in 1958, when Sitkovetsky was just three years old and the family moved to Moscow where Dmitry...

 and Alexandre Rabinovitch.

Teaching

A steady stream of international competition winners have come from Despalj's classes. Besides teaching in Zagreb, he has also been a guest professor at the conservatories in The Hague

Royal Conservatory of The Hague

The Royal Conservatory of The Hague is a conservatorium of music, providing higher education in music and dance, it is located in The Hague, Netherlands.-The Conservatory:...

, Amsterdam

Conservatorium van Amsterdam

The Conservatorium van Amsterdam is a Dutch academy of music located in Amsterdam. This school is the music division of the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, the city's vocational university of arts...

, Copenhagen and Graz

Graz

The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

 (University of Music), editor of cello music with major music publishers, and member of judging panels at the most prestigious international competitions including Tchaikovsky (Moscow)

International Tchaikovsky Competition

The International Tchaikovsky Competition is a classical music competition held every four years in Moscow, Russia for pianists, violinists, and cellists between 16 and 30 years of age, and singers between 19 and 32 years of age...

, Bach (Leipzig)

International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition

The International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition is a music competition in Leipzig, Germany, held by the Bach-Archiv Leipzig. It was founded in 1950 and was held every four years from 1964 to 1996 with five subjects and is now held every two years with three changing subjects...

 and ARD (Munich)

ARD International Music Competition

The ARD International Music Competition is the largest international classical music competition in Germany. It is held once a year in Munich.-History:...

 competitions.

In 2010, Dešpalj was named by the Croatian Parliament into the distinguished committee that awards the Vladimir Nazor Award

Vladimir Nazor award

The Vladimir Nazor Award is an annual award given by the Croatian Ministry of Culture to Croatian artists for highest achievements in various artistic fields. It was established in 1959 and is named after the notable writer Vladimir Nazor...

s.