Jan Ovnik is a Junior Researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology, ZRC SAZU. He holds a master’s degree in Musicology from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana. He is currently in the final stage of completing his second master’s degree in Social and Cultural History at the same institution, where he is also a PhD candidate in the Humanities and Social Sciences programme, specialising in Ethnology, Cultural and Social Anthropology. As part of his postgraduate studies, he spent a semester as an Erasmus+ student at the University of Padua in Italy. Later, during his doctoral studies, he undertook a month-long research stay at An Giang University in Vietnam. His research to date has addressed various topics in (historical) ethnomusicology, epistemology of music studies, cultural and intellectual history, and economic anthropology of music.
Since joining the Institute of Ethnomusicology, ZRC SAZU (2023–), Jan Ovnik’s research has focused primarily on the economic and functional dimensions of past and contemporary musical services at weddings in various (post)socialist societies, with particular emphasis on the Slovenian context in the twentieth century. This topic will also be addressed in his doctoral dissertation, Economic Dimensions of Musical Services at Weddings in the Savinjska Region during and after Socialism, in which he will combine historiographical and ethnographic methods to examine the continuities, discontinuities, and transformations in the service work of wedding musicians in light of the broader socioeconomic changes that affected the wider Savinjska region in the twentieth century.
Ovnik, Jan. From musical practices to words about them: »sincerity«, »sincere« and »sincerely« in the discourse on musical matters between 1990 and 2010. Master's thesis. Ljubljana, 2023.
- Research on Slovenian Folk Culture in Folklore Studies and Ethnology (research programme • January 1, 2019 - December 31, 2027)
- Member of the editorial board of Etnofon, an online collection of scholarly annotated audio publications of folk music (2023–).
- Member of the Executive Committee and Secretary of the Slovenian Musicological Society (2025–).