He studied at the music academy in Zagreb with Jurica Murai and was awarded with the Zagreb University Rector's Prize and the prize from the Croatian Music Union for the best diploma concert.
At the University for Music and Arts in Vienna, he completed his studies In piano performance with Noel Flores, obtaining the concert diploma. He received scholarships from the Austrian Ministry of Science and the Alban Berg Foundation. He attended fortepiano master classes (historic pianos) with Malcolm Bilson at Cornell University (NY, USA) and in Belgium.
In 1980, he won the first prizes at the Croatian and Yugoslavian youth music competitions. In 1983, he was a prizewinner at the international piano competition in Udine (Italy). He was a finalist In the modern music competition at the Wiener Musikverein in 1988. In 2005, he was nominated for the Klassik Amadeus Award together with the Pleyel Trio Wien, which he had founded.
During the 'Mozart Year', he performed as soloist and with the Pleyel Trio as part of the symposium on Mozart´s composer contemporaries in the Vienna Radio-Kulturhaus; at the ceremony opening the major Albertina exhibition MOZART 2006 in the Wiener Hofburg; in the Prunksaal of the Austrian National Library; at the summer festivals in Dubrovnik, Zagreb and Split, and with the Croatian Chamber Orchestra.
On the initiative of Hrvoje Jugovic and in cooperation with the Croatian Ministry of Culture and the Vienna Da Ponte Institute, avery rare fortepiano by Anton Walter (built about 1790 in Vienna) from the Rector's Palace of the Art History Museum in Dubrovnik was restored in Salzburg and shown at the Mozart exhibition in the Albertina in Vienna.
In dec. 2004, a CD was released by Gramola including Pleyel´s piano trios, which were performed for the first time, and another CD was released in 2006, containing Mozart´s piano concerti played on the Dubrovnik - Walter fortepiano by Hrvoje Jugovic.