Issue No. 49
Conversations
Aleš Erjavec – AN INTERVIEW WITH PROF. DR. MIŠKO ŠUVAKOVIĆ
Abstract: Prof. Dr. Miško Šuvaković obtained his PhD at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Arts in Belgrade, in 1993. He was Professor of Applied Aesthetics at the
Faculty of Music in Belgrade (1996–2015). Currently, he is Professor of Applied
Aesthetics & Theory of Art and Media at the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade. He is also Dean of the Faculty of Media and Communications in
Belgrade. He is a member of the Slovenian Society of Aesthetics. He is the president of the Society for Aesthetics of Architecture and Visual Arts of Serbia and is
also Second Vice-president of the International Association for Aesthetics (IAA).
He was a member of the conceptualist Group 143 (1975–1980), a member of the
informal theoretical community “The Community for Researching Space” (1982–1989) and member of the theoretical-performing organisation “Walking Theory” (since 2000), as well as a follower of the new media and performance artistic and
designer platform PSE (Provisional Salta Ensemble, since 2008).
He edited the magazine Katalog 143 [Catalogue 143, 1976–1978] and the independent theoretical magazine Mentalni prostor [Mental Space, Belgrade, 1982–1987].
He has been a member of the editorial staffs of TransKatalog [TransCatalogue,
Novi Sad, 1995–1998], the magazine Teorija koja hoda [Walking Theory, Belgrade, since 2001], Razlika [Difference, Tuzla, 2002], Sarajevske sveske [Sarajevo
Notebooks, Sarajevo, 2005] and AM [Art Media, Belgrade, 2012].
He has published or edited 50 books and numerous essays in Serbian, Slovenian,
Croatian, Macedonian, Bosnian, English, German, French, Armenian, Belorussian,
Chinese, etc.
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Studies
Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman – A PIECE OF MUSIC IN THE DYNAMICS OF THE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARTEFACT AND FACT
Abstract: In this paper, I shall consider the ontological duality and functional interchangeability of artefact and fact in the field of music, proceeding from the assumption that every
artefact is at the same time a fact, yet every fact is not necessarily an artefact. Thereby, I
understand the fact in the sense of everything that exists in reality, and bears an enduring
identity as an object, phenomenon or information. By artefact, I understand a material
product of human activity.
Such a starting point, enables, in each piece of music, the multifaceted consideration of
the dynamics in the relationship between artefact and fact. On this occasion, I shall exemplify this relationship on Svetlana Savić’s compositions The Sonnets for female voice,
violoncello, piano and electronics (2012), from three characteristic aspects: 1) their ontology in the score and at the phenomenal level; 2) the ensemble, presenting a specific ontological unity of artefact and fact, the unity for which the compositions are created; and 3)
environmental sounds as a fact in the shaping of compositions as artefact.
All three aspects of consideration are expected to point to the complexity of the relationship between artefact and fact, to their particular, individual profiling, but also their mutual resignification in a piece of music, owing to the nature and the kind of the piece’s
relevant ‘protagonists’.
Keywords: fact; artefact; artefact-fact duality; environmental sounds; Svetlana Savić; La
douce nuit; La vita fugge.
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Sound examples with the study: No. 1, No. 2, No. 3
Mirjana Zakić, Sanja Ranković – CURRENT MUSIC AND DANCE PRACTICE OF CENTRAL
KOSOVO AND METOHIJA: TRANSFORMATIONS
SINCE THE 1990s
Abstract: Ethnomusicological and ethnochoreological research of the central part of
Kosovo and Metohija has been conducted since the late 19th century up to the present.
However, the gathered data are sparse and provide insufficient (and only partial) information regarding the music and dance tradition of this area. This fact was the main motive
for arranging our own field-trip to the region, during 2015 and 2016.
The recorded material and numerous informants’ narratives provided an important insight
into the state of both previous and contemporary music and dance practice, enabling one
to examine the transformations regarding music and dance that have taken place since the
1990s from several viewpoints: national and multinational, professional and amateur,
local and regional. The causes of the changes that have occurred over the course of the
last few decades, will be discussed in this paper through the political, ideological, socio- logical, and cultural prism. Thus, our attention will focus particularly on the national ensembles Shota (Priština) and Venac (Gračanica), as well as on the local repertoire of
different ethnic groups – Serbian, Albanian, Romani and Croatian, in former and contemporary conditions. An especially intriguing question is to what extent, and in what ways
did geopolitical restructuring and cultural evaluations in the post-socialist period influence
the sustainability, i.e. the change in music and dance forms, as important aspects of the
self-representation of the ethnicities that exist in this region?
Keywords: music and dance practice, Kosovo and Metohija, transformations from the
1990s, national and multinational, inter-ethnic cultural resistance.
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Sonja Marinković – THE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND CHOIR OF THE FACULTY
OF MUSIC IN BELGRADE
Abstract: The article sheds light on the work of the Mixed Choir and Symphony Orchestra of the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, two representative ensembles that have made,
over a number of decades, an invaluable contribution to the Faculty’s standing in the city,
nationally, as well as abroad, always taking an active part on the music scene. The aim is
to show that their activities have combined pedagogical and artistic work and that they
are, in an essential way, an indicator of the institution’s achievements.
Keywords: Academy/Faculty of Music in Belgrade, music pedagogy, Mixed Choir of the
Faculty of Music, Symphony Orchestra of the Faculty of Music, Serbian music.
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New Works
Ana Stefanović – THE OEUVRE OF VLASTIMIR TRAJKOVIĆ (1947–2017):
A POETICS OF THE TIME (AND) OF ART
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Ksenija Stevanović – POETICAL MECHANISM OF LINES AND CIRCLES:
COMPOSITIONAL UNDERSTATEMENT OF BRANKA POPOVIĆ
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Views
Milan Milojković – PILGRIMAGE THROUGH A SOUND HORIZON – A GUIDE
THROUGH THE ELECTROACOUSTIC WORKS BY VLADIMIR
JOVANOVIĆ (1956–2016)
Abstract: In this paper, I aim to create a compiled analytical description of electroacoustic works by the untimely deceased composer Vladimir Jovanović, created between 2002,
when he was appointed as manager of the Electronic Studio of III program of Radio
Belgrade, and 2015, when he left this post. During this time, the author created seven
studio compositions, almost exclusively using a computer. Thus, the focus of this paper
will be placed on peculiarities of his compositional techniques – especially when working
with MIDI and samples. The base for the formation of the narrative about Jovanović’s
works will be his statements, recorded in a radio interview and program notes he wrote as
accompaniment to his compositions, together with the musicological and theoretical writings of Serbian authors.
Keywords: electroacoustic music, computer music, MIDI, sample, Electronic studio,
Vladimir Jovanović.
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Lauren Redhead – ENTOPTIC LANDSCAPE AND IJEREJA: MUSIC AS AN
ITERATIVE PROCESS
Abstract: entoptic landscape and ijereja are both works that can be considered as expanding collections of materials. They explore the spaces between composition, notation, performance and improvisation by considering all of these activities as equally ‘performative’. Each work comprises a set of materials that includes scores, fixed media audio and video,
recorded live performances, studio-edited performances, and performance strategies. In
the case of each piece, materials created in and by previous performances go on to inform
future performances of the music. As such, there can be no ‘definitive’ performance or
statement of the works, and nor can they ever be considered finished or bounded. This is
how these pieces conceive of music as an iterative process: they are intended as statements
of that process.
Nicholas Bourriaud (2010) identifies the creative artist as a ‘semionaut’: one who must
navigate between signs and signifiers in order to negotiate, interpret, and create meaning.
In the ‘work’ of music, the composer, performer and listener can all be thought of as semionauts; they take part in the same processes to create and re-create the ‘work’. In my
own practices I embody and enact all three of these positions, and I seek to blur the boundaries between listening, performing and composing. Contemporary artistic forms in Bourriaud’s terms, then, are ‘journey forms’: they internalise and externalise an experience of
movement through the work as a temporal and spatial territory. The music presented here
offers an opportunity for the exploration of the journey form as a compositional strategy,
a tool for performance and interpretation, and a framework for criticism.
Keywords: experimental music, Bourriaud, practice research, iterative processes, musical processes, journey form, semionaut.
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Saša Božidarević – THE TRADITIONAL AND THE CONTEMPORARY IN ART AND
EDUCATION – CONFERENCE SUMMARY
Download: ser / eng
Analysis
Ivana Medić – PARENTING THE PIANO: MIROSLAV MIŠA SAVIĆ’S ST. LAZARUS WALTZ
Abstract: This article deals with a work by a contemporary Serbian composer Miroslav
Miša Savić (b. 1954): St. Lazarus Waltz for one or two grand pianos, with or without
children’s toy pianos. Since St. Lazarus is a children’s holiday, the composer’s idea was
to depict children by toy pianos, while the grand pianos are ‘parents’. The waltz exists in
several versions: from the first one, where the children pianos are quite small and their
musical parts very restricted, to the version for two ‘adult’ pianos, which describes the
moment in life when children have grown up and left their parental home. Aside from
exploring these musical ‘family ties’, Savić implements a simple yet ingenious constructive principle in all versions of this waltz. The structure of the piece is based on the exploitation of the system of equal temperament and on the Fibonacci row, and this frame is
filled with several layers of musical references, including: Johann Sebastian Bach and
other composers who wrote ‘well-tempered’ piano music; repetitive/processual minimalism, a style that Savić and his peers brought into Serbian music, but have since evolved in different directions; the Serbian tradition of romantic salon piano pieces; finally, the
Orthodox tradition, but referenced in a way very different from the ‘neo-Orthodox’ trend
that has been present in Serbian art music since the late 1980s.
Keywords: Miroslav Miša Savić, St. Lazarus Waltz, parents and children, toy pianos,
Serbian Orthodox Church, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Nada Kolundžija, LP Duo.
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Research and Tradition
Bogumila Mika – ‘BENEATH THE SHADOW OF POLITICS’. RECEPTION OF THE
MUSIC OF EDISON DENISOV IN POLAND
Abstract: The music of Russian composer Edison Denisov was frequently presented in
the Warsaw Autumn festival. Between 1964 and 2005, Polish audiences heard his pieces
21 times, including three world premieres. This music was widely received, especially in
the 1960s and the 1970s, when Polish culture was strongly influenced by politics. The
following decades brought changes in the context of politics and style in the arts, but
Denisov’s compositions continued to be performed in Warsaw. The aim of this paper is to
present the opinions formulated by Polish music critics as evidence about the reception
of Denisov’s music.
Keywords: Edison Denisov, reception, the Warsaw Autumn festival, critics, avant-garde,
Russian music.
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Eudjen Činč, Jasmina Stolić – ROMANIAN COMPOSERS’ SPIRITUAL CREATIVITY IN THE
XX CENTURY – MUSICAL HAGIOGRAPHY OF THE ORDEAL
OF A SOCIETY
Abstract: The spiritual musical creativity of Romanian composers in the XX century
underwent numerous phases, between zenith and despair, due to social events specific for
the whole of south-eastern Europe in the past century. Even though this creativity, in essence, expresses the tradition of the East, endeavouring to avoid any loss of its Byzantine
roots, many composers, especially in the second half of the XX century, leave aside the
elements of this esthetic and direct its creative focus to new creative tendencies. This work
reviews compositions with spiritual themes by XX century Romanian composers, from
the first decades, encompassing the years of communistic rule, till the days when it became immersed in a postmodern creative course, and it presents the names of the majority
of composers who dedicated their works to the glory of the Almighty, analyzing thoroughly the information found at the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania
from Bucharest.
Keywords: spiritual repertoire, Vocal music, instrumental music, scenic pieces with a
spiritual character.
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Reviews
Bojana Radovanović – The 13th KoMA festival – Young
Authors’ Concerts
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Leon Stefanija – Miloš Zatkalik and Verica Mihajlović:
Prolongacija i strukturni nivoi u
posttonalnoj muzici [Prolongation and
Structural Levels in
Post-tonal Music].
Banja Luka: Univerzitet u Banjoj Luci,
Akademija umjetnosti, 2016 (Banja Luka:
Art print). Copies printed: 300. Index: pp.
301–307. Supplements: pp. 311–344.
Notes and references: pp. 345–357. ISBN
978-99938-27-19-1
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Anja Lazarević – Многострука уметничка делатност
Предрага Милошевића (1904–1988):
поводом 110. годишњице од рођења
[Multifaceted Artistic Activity of
Predrag Milošević (1904-1988) –
on the 110th Birth Anniversary]
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Marija Maglov – Клавирски трио у српској музици:
Ватрења. Удружење композитора
Србије [Serbian Music for Piano Trio:
Fieriness. Composers Association of
Serbia, 2015]
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Defended Doctoral Theses
Miloje Nikolić – Примена гешталт аналитичког
метода у проучавању форме
Мокрањчевих руковети
[Application of the Analytical
Gestalt Method to Study of
Rukoveti by Mokranjac]
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Jelena Mihajlović-Marković – Vidovi organizacije tonalnog sistema
Sergeja Prokofjeva [Modalities of
Organizing the Tonal System of Sergei
Prokofiev]
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Srđan Teparić – Ресемантизација у првој половини
ХХ века 1917–1945 [Resemantization
in the First Half of the Twentieth
Century 1917-1945]
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Marija Dumnić – Istorijski aspekti i savremene prakse
izvođenja starogradske muzike u
Beogradu [Historical Aspects and
Contemporary Performance Practices
of “Old Urban Music” (starogradska
muzika) in Belgrade]
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Saša Božidarević – Интертекстуални и цитатни
поступци у руковетима и сродним
формама у српској хорској музици
друге половине ХХ века
[Intertextual and Citation Procedures
in Garlands and Related Forms in
Serbian Choral Music in the Second
Half of XX Century]
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