Zhlehtet – Exploring Contemporary Café Culture Through Sound
Date: 9 JULY 2026
Ilja Petric – vocals, flute, percussion
Lenart De Bock – saxophone
Rok Zalokar – piano, electronics
Gaj Boštič – drums
Rok Zalokar is a pianist, composer and producer, and one of the most distinctive figures on Slovenia’s contemporary jazz scene. Based between Ljubljana and Rotterdam, he leads his own piano trio, the avant-garde pop band Kukushai and the improvisational hip-hop group Million Ear. He has performed at the prestigious North Sea Jazz Festival and has received the international Erasmus Jazz Prize and the Jazzon Award for his work.
At the Maks Bookstore and Café, he will present Zhlehtet, his producer alter ego and a musical collective bringing together some of the leading artists from Ljubljana’s improvisational scene. Their music combines acoustic sound with electronics, composition with free improvisation, and elements of spiritual and cosmic jazz with a distinctly contemporary sonic aesthetic. The concert is part of the international project CAFÉ – Redefining Café Houses as Unique European Cultural Heritage, which explores cafés as important spaces for social encounters, dialogue, artistic creation and cultural exchange. In this context, the café is not merely a venue but an active part of the artistic experience—an open space where musicians and audiences, different creative practices, ideas and personal stories come together.
The improvisational nature of Zhlehtet reflects the very essence of the CAFÉ project. Their music is created in the moment through a direct dialogue between the performers, the audience and the space itself. Just as European cafés have historically served as laboratories for new ideas and artistic movements, Maks will become a place of shared listening, spontaneous creation and exploration of the sound of the 21st century.
Venue: Knjigarna kavarna Maks, Nova Gorica
The event is part of the CAFÉ project, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.