Rojko once said that the mission of his work was to "awake a sensitivity to understand subtler nuances of music which do not make themselves available as a cheap consumerist pleasure".
"The point of my work is not to compose something that sounds nice, that is pleasurable, that makes a hit ... It is much more about cultivating the ear."
In his acceptance speech at the ceremony on Monday, Rojko said that culture and art should regain a more prominent place in Slovenian society, also in view of the latest studies on children playing music.
"It has been empirically proven beyond doubt what an effect this has on the development of a child and human," Rojko said, adding that people who practised music and art as children had a different way of thinking.
Rojko lives and works between Karlsruhe, Freiburg and Ljubljana. He is professor of composition at the Ljubljana Academy of Music and since 2015 a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Born in Ljubljana in 1954, Rojko studied clarinet at the Ljubljana Academy of Music, graduating from composition. He went on to study with Klaus Huber in Freiburg and with György Ligeti in Hamburg.
The judging panel praised Rojko as a sensitive observer of contemporary society who responds to every kind of musical phenomena, to their subtlest layers.
In recent years he has been focusing on chamber music. His best known compositions include Tongenesis and Der Atem der verletzten Zeit for symphony orchestras; Mo/Ten/Tion for large orchestra and groups in space, Evocation for large orchestra and groups in the background.
He has also written Inner Voices, a concerto for flute and chamber orchestra, Concerto Fluido for accordion and 16 instruments, music for dance show Popolni korak? (A Perfect Step?) and Rondo-vous for an ensemble and live electronic music.
