Iva Kuprešak is the founder and director of the Institute for Music and Creative Industries (Privatna glazbena škola „Iva Kuprešak”). The Institute is verified by the Ministry of Education and Science and part of an international network of world-renowned universities, conservatoires, opera houses, and music academies.
Her path here was anything but linear. And that is precisely what makes it her own.

Iva built her early career as an opera singer and music theorist — developing her craft across some of the world’s most demanding stages and institutions. But alongside the performances and the theory, something else was quietly taking shape…

In the United States, she began working voluntarily with children in inner-city communities — running music programmes for kids who had little access to arts education and even less reason to expect it.

She never stopped believing in that. And she spent the years that followed finding a way to build it into something lasting…

The Institute was the result. Founded on the conviction that music is not a luxury — it is a language, and everyone deserves to speak it.

Today, the Institute reaches not only students in Zagreb but young people in geographically remote and underserved areas, including through its regional campus in Novalja.

Through the Institute, Iva has brought some of the world’s leading experts in music, management, and culture directly to Croatia — through workshops, masterclasses, and open events.

She is also the author of her own seminars and workshops, delivered in collaboration with universities, institutions, and organisations across the world.

The same conviction runs through everything she does. As President of the Regional Development Association for South East Europe, she has built a cross-sector network of 473+ partner organisations and delivered 78 EU-funded projects.

Iva has spoken at the Economic Forum in Karpacz, Poland for several consecutive years, and has been invited to lecture across Europe and internationally — including by the City of Ningbo and its Department of Education in China. She holds a graduate degree from Columbia University in the City of New York.