10:00 Art School Stevan Mokranjac Within the Days of Mokranjac Festival 2017, a three-day seminar for choral conductors will be held for the members of the Serbian Choral Association. This year, the seminar was conceived as a Conductors’ Pilgrimage, and is being realized in cooperation with the Serbian Choral Association, founded in Sombor in 2017. 1. Vocal technique and choral repertoire The conductors will also have the opportunity to attend all the concerts at the Festival and discuss them afterwards with other participants of the Seminar. 11:00 Town Square Pavle Medakovic, conductor, has been the head of the Symphony Orchestra of the Artistic Ensemble of the Ministry of Defense Stanislav Binicki since 1988. He was an artistic director and conductor of the Jeunesse Musical Orchestra. He is one of the founders of the Young Philharmonic Orchestra Borislav Pašćan. He was the chief conductor of Mostar Symphony Orchestra and Mostar Choir Abrašević, and he became the conductor of the choir Abrašević in Belgrade in 1986. He specialized with conductors Pierre Dervo and Sergiu Celibidache. He performed with leading domestic orchestras, and he recorded many permanent recordings for Radio and TV. He has performed in many countries of Europe – Italy, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Poland, France, Spain – working with prestigious symphonic orchestras such as the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ignacio Paderewski Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland, the Symphony Orchestra in Seville (Spain). He also cooperated with the Philharmonic Orchestra in Burgas and the city of Ruse (Bulgaria), Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, Warsaw Radio Orchestra and others. 12:00 Birth house of Mokranjac A monograph is a book that extensively covers a particular topic and is designed to exist for itself. It reflects a part of the research work, the collection of existing and new information and presents a set of data related to the chosen theme, says the author of the monograph Mokranjac and Slovenians, Goran Vučković, in the foreword to the book. He is a long-time editor of Negotin magazine for literature, art and culture Buktinja. Once a year, this magazine has an issue dedicated to music. The themes of some of them brought to life authorial texts about the life and work of Stevan Mokranjac, about the Festival the Days of Mokranjac in Negotin, as well as about the author of the Slovenian and Serbian national anthems – Davorin Jenko. In September 2014, the issue of this magazine was also dedicated to the centenary of the death of two musical geniuses, says Goran Vučković and adds: I have been constantly asking myself how many times in the 50 years of the existence of the event Slovenian musicians, folklore ensembles and choirs took part in The Days of Mokranjac. This question has prompted the need to make such a book, of monographic or photo monographic character. Goran Vučković (1965, Negotin) writes poetry and prose, collects folk poems, stories, proverbs and utterances from Negotin’s Krajina. He collaborates with numerous literary magazines. He published collections of poems Step to Poetry, Bells of Homeland Ringing and Singing and Muteness as well as collections of songs for children Colourful guide through childhood and Something from the sleeve. He prepared a selection of texts on the books of professor dr. Ljubiša Koželjac (Koželjac’s work in the light of literary criticism), published a book of conversations with Dr. Koželjac (Firefly from Koželj) and the anthology of Timok Krajina’s poetry entitled Sounds of the Timok’s lira, and a collection of poems Dawn on the Pillow and a collection of poems for children Dreams and Fantasies. He is the author of documentary television shows: Mills on river Zamna, Krajina’s harvest and Smedovac’s Beaujolais and a documentary film Contributor or Only Adam from Krajina. He was the editor of the magazine Buktinja (2008-2016), founder and editor of the children magazine Plamičak and magazines for literature, art and culture Riznica. He is the winner of the award given by Dositej Novakovic library from Negotin, the award of the library Svetozar Markovic from Zajecar and the honorary commen dation of the Association of Writers of Serbia, the plaque Mirko Petkovic for poetry and plaque Simo Matavulj for the magazine Buktinja. He is a member of the Association of Serbian Writers. He lives and works in Negotin. 14:00 Art School Stevan Mokranjac 19:00 Krajina Cinema Stage The last year’s winner of the choir singing competition, Mixed choir of the Amateur Cultural Artistic Society of University of Novi Sad Sonja Marinkovic was founded in late 1961. and it was one of the first sections of the Society. The choir nurtures music by foreign and domestic authors of different epochs and styles. The academic backgrounds, tradition and reputation of the Mixed Choir contribute confirmation of its high artistic level – winning prestigious awards at numerous festivals. The main objectives of the section were gathering talented singers, preserving and fostering global and spiritual choral art, the development of culture and artistic amateurism, participation in festivals, competitions and other public appearances. In pursuit of these objectives, special attention is paid to the singers’ professional music upgrading and development of civic awareness and academic life. Some of the most eminent choral conductors and music educators contributed to this with their efforts and skill: Imre Toplak, Hilda Pucarević, Nada Pavlov, Danijela Hodoba Leš, Jasmina Nešković and others. Dunja Deurić (1987, Zrenjanin) finished elementary and secondary music school Josif Marinkovic in her hometown, on the theoretical and the Department of solo singing in the class of Ana Aleksic Šajrer. As a solo singer, she has performed in numerous competitions in the country, and won many awards, such as the laureate of the Republic competition of solo singers (Belgrade, 2005), second prize at the Republic competition of solo singers (Belgrade 2004), second prize at the third competition of solo singers Lazar Jovanović (Belgrade, 2006)… At the Academy of arts in Novi Sad she got a degree in Music Pedagogy in 2012, and Master degree in Art theory in 2015 (topic: The role and application of feature and animated films in teaching music culture). During the study, she based her interests on choral singing and cooperated with the Vojvodina mixed choir, vocal studio Orfelin, church choirs St. George and St. Stefan of Decani, and has attended conducting workshops in choral festival Europa Cantat in Torino in 2012 and 2015 in Pecs. Since January 2015, she has been the conductor and an artistic manager of the choir of the Amateur Cultural Artistic Society of University of Novi Sad Sonja Marinkovic Novi Sad. She was pronounced the best conductor in the First international Choir Championship Lege Artis in Tuzla, 2016. 20:00 Culture Center Ballet Women in d-minor is inspired by admiration for genius of J. S. Bach. The source of choreographer’s inspiration was the Bach’s polyphony: The overall plasticity of ballet texture is completely polyphonic. The tragic story of a non-existent female friendship is just an excuse for sophisticated compositions with lots of figures and for moving duets, says choreographer Radu Poklitaru. Thanks to the combination of Bach’s celestial music and modern expressive plasticity, the ending of this ballet can be compared to the biblical tragedy. Costume designer Dmitro Kuriyata managed to respond to the request made by his choreographer – specifically, he managed to reproduce the atmosphere of the Bach’s age. There are 16 main female characters in the ballet, and the female roles are also performed by men. A long Christmas dinner is a ballet contemplation of the transience of life, full of futile and useless actions that steal precious moments, hours and years of our earthly life. The story speaks of the history of the Bayard family for ninety years, with years being presented as a series of Christmas dinners. Radu Poklitaru, is one of the leading choreographers of today; he was born in Chisinau, in the family of ballet artists. He graduated from the State Choreography School in Perm in 1991. He graduated from the Belarus State Music Academy in 1999 and obtained the title of ballet master (with the mentor Professor Valentin Elizaryev, Meritorious artist of the USSR). From 1991 to 2001 he was a member of the Ballet of the National Opera and Ballet of Belarus, and then for one year he was a ballet master of the National Opera of Moldova. During season 2012/2013 he was employed as artistic director of the Academic Opera and Ballet Theater for Children and Youth in Kiev. He is the author of the choreography of the opening and closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sochi 2014. At the opening, a mini ballet First Ball by Natasha Rostova was performed on the music of various composers, with the participation of former and current members of the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet, among which were: Svetlana Zaharova, Vladimir Vasily, Ivan Vasilyev and Aleksandar Petuhov. He is the winner of the Shevchenko National Award, which is awarded in the field of performing arts. He has made more than thirty different ballet performances in European theaters, and his ballets have been performed at numerous international music festivals and tours in Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, the USA, Japan, China, Poland, Estonia, Thailand, and Spain.10:00
Seminar: Conductor’s Pilgrimage
Miloje Nikolić, PhD, conductor
Tamara Adamov Petijević, MA, conductor
The seminar is run by our renowned conductors: Miloje Nikolić PhD, and Tamara Adamov Petijević, MA. During the last three days of the festival, from September 27 to 29, the conductors will have lectures, discussions and workshops on the following topics:
2. Problems in today’s choral life of Serbia
3. Vocal and stylistic standards in the interpretations
of Mokranjac’s choral compositions.11:00
Concert: Classical music at 11
The Artistic Ensemble of the Ministry of Defence, Stanislav Binički
Conductor: Pavle Medaković12:00
Promotion of the monograph: Mokranjac and Slovenians
Author: Goran Vučković14:00
Master solo singing course Zoran Todorovic
Milica Ilić, accompanist19:00
Concert: Choir Sonja Marinković, Novi Sad
Conductor: Dunja Deurić
Winner of the Choirs competition 2016.
During the year 2015, when Dunja Deurić became the conductor, the Choir participated in many competitive festivals and won a number of prestigious awards. Among those are: Golden diploma at the first International Festival of Youth Choirs Handful for the world, Golden diploma at the 39th Festival of Youth Choirs of Vojvodina, Golden diploma at the second International Choir Competition Aleksandar Morfidis Nisis (Novi Sad), special jury Prize and the Prize of the Association of Bulgarian composers festival Sounds of the Black Sea (Balchik), Gold medal in the category of mixed choirs and Grand Prix of the competition at the festival May music festival (Bijeljina), gold medal and laureate of the 52nd Festival of music societies of Vojvodina (Ruma), and many others. The choir also took part in non-competitive festivals and celebrations, such as European day of Languages, KUSTUS 05, Science Festival, Festival Singing Tree, etc. In 2016 the choir has won again Golden Diploma at the third International Choir Competition Aleksandar Morfidis Nisis, and the Golden plaque and the Grand Prix at the First International Choir Championship Lege Artis in Tuzla. At the international competition Musica Eterna Roma (1-5 July 2016), within the choral festival Meeting Music, Choir won two silver diplomas in the category of mixed choirs, and in the category of spiritual music. In July 2017, the Choir won the silver medal in the category of spiritual music and the gold medal in the category of chamber choirs in Interkultur – 6th International choir festival Anton Brukner in Linz, and it qualified for the World Choir Games in South Africa in 2018.
The mixed choir currently has 30 singers of different professions, who are connected by the love of music, socializing and travelling. The backbones of the choir are students of the University of Novi Sad.20:00
Ballet night
Women in d- minor, ballet for music of J.S. Bach and Long Christmas Dinner, ballet to A. Vivaldi’s music
Libretto and choreography by Radu Poklitaru
National Theatre, Belgrade
Human fates propagate presented through feasts and banquets. Like butterflies who live only for one day, they split into some kind of non-existence, leaving nothing to remember them by. An energetic, grotesque choreography easily finds the way to every heart in the audience, without dogmatic moralization, and makes viewers to think of whether they are different from the characters on the scene.