The first specialized ensemble for contemporary music in Croatia, the Cantus Ensemble was founded at the Music Biennale Zagreb 2001. From its very beginning, the ensemble retains a permanent make-up, under the artistic leadership of Berislav Šipuš, the ensemble conductor. Cantus Ensemble is a regular participant in all local festivals and events, as well as the initiator and organizer of its own concert cycle (Cantus & Lisinski, in 2006/2007 season). Approximately seventy-premiere performances, two hundred performed works, more than thirty foreign tours (Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Bosnia, Germany, Belgium, Great Britain, Sweden, Turkey, Mexico, China, Canada), as well as collaboration with numerous guest soloists (Dunja Vejzović, Joseph Lešaja, Enrico Dindo, Edin Karamazov, Petrit Ceku, Roberto Fabbriciani et al.) and conductors (Luca Pfaff, Johannes Kalitzke etc.) show the importance and place this ensemble occupies at country and abroad. During the last two years, the ensemble Cantus is a participant of the project Re:New Music, sponsored by EU funds, and in 2008 the ensemble was proclaimed the official ISCM Ensemble.