11:00
11:00 Town Square
Concert: Classical music at 11
Belgrade Faculty of Music’s Students
Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade is marking 79 years since its establishment in 2016. As the oldest higher education institution in the field of music pedagogy, is credited with laying the foundations of overall development of the system of musical education in Serbia. Today, with 1,044 students and nearly 200 teachers it is the largest in the region and their programs of study cover all specialties in the field of music.
Studies are oriented towards training of professional musicians-performers and music educators, but also include the composition, musicology, ethnomusicology, combining the fields of art and social humanistic science. Teaching at undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Music is organized into sixteen study programs: Composition, Conducting, Solo Singing, Piano, String instruments (violin, viola, cello, double bass), Wind instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn , trumpet, trombone and tuba), musicology, music pedagogy, music theory, ethnomusicology, five study programs within Poly-instrumental section (harpsichord, harp, organ, guitar, percussion), and Jazz and popular music. The course consists of 26 study programs and it is organized at all levels of study: undergraduate, graduate and doctorate in the fields of arts and social sciences and humanities, and in the fields of music and performing arts, and the science of art. The most prominent Serbian artists are among the teachers. Their best students will present the program of The Days of Mokranjac – Classical music at 11. Joining the European practice of holding concerts in the open, they will present their skills, talent and irreplaceable energy of youth. We invite you to confirm the power of music to which they devoted their lives and visit their concerts in the central square in Negotin.
19:00
19:00 Cultural Centre
Choir Angel Manolov, Sofia
Winner of the choirs’ competition 2015
Conductor: Darena Popova
Darena Popova graduated from the State Academy of Music, Sofia, Bulgaria in 1984, with a major in choir conducting in the class of Professor Vassil Arnaudov. Since 1998 she has been a conductor of Academic Choir Angel Manolov, and since 2005 of the folklore group Chemerika. In the-recent years Mrs. Popova was a laureate in many choir festivals and competitions in Spain (Cantonigros, Torrevieja), Slovakia (Trnava), UK (Langollen), Sweden (Helsingbord), Cyprus (Limasol), Italy (Gorizia and Arezzo), The Netherlands (Veldhoven), Portugal (Freamunde), Poland (Bialystok and Wroclaw), Austria, France, Germany, Turkey, Ecuador, Albania, Romania, Georgia, Armenia and Serbia. Darena Popova is a member of Europa Cantat since 1993. Under her conducting, Academic choir Angel Manolov was awarded with Golden Lyre of the Union of Musicians and Dancers in 2003. In the 51st and 55th International Contest of Habaneras and Polyphony, Torrevieja, Spain, respectively in 2005 and 2009, Darena Popova won twice Best conductor prize – José Hódar. In 2008 she was awarded with a Gold plaque Mati Bulgaria. In the 1st International Choir Competition in Freamunde, Portugal in 2010, Darena Popova won the prize Best conductor. In 2015, in the Balkan Championship of Folklore Live Water (Hisarya, Bulgaria), she won a Gold medal, Gold Orpheus and the prize Best conductor – an award for Maestro.
T
he Academic Choir Manolov (Sofia, Bulgaria), one of the first students` choirs in Bulgaria, is named after its founder from 1933 – Maestro Angel Manolov (1912-1991). In the period since 1933 until nowadays over 4100 students have been members of the choir, 250 of them have chosen music as their profession. Among them are the world-famous opera singers Boris Christov, Margarita Lilova, Aleksandrina Milcheva, etc. So far, the choir has performed in over 4000 concerts in Bulgaria and over 350 concerts abroad. The choir is a laureate of a number of first prizes and golden medals, diplomas and honours from choir festivals and competitions in Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Moscow, Langollen, Varna, Torrevieja, Antalya, Arezzo, Negotin and many other cities in the world. The repertoire of the Academic Choir includes a wide variety of compositions from different periods and styles: Bulgarian and Russian works for choir, Slavonic Orthodox chants, West European classical works as well as various pieces by contemporary composers from different countries. In 2016 Academic choir Angel Manolov was elected to be a representative of The Regional Centre for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in South-Eastern Europe under the auspices of UNESCO.
21:00
21:00 Krajina Cinema Stage
Concert: Belgrade Philharmonic String quartet
Belgrade Philharmonic String Quartet was founded in 2011 by musicians of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra: Jelena Dragnić, Vladan Lončar, Boris Brezovac and Aleksandar Latković. In April 2016 the Quartet has performed at the opening of the SOMUS Festival in Sombor, Serbia, made their first appearance in Izmir, Turkey, and performed on the Day of the City of Banja Luka in the National Theatre of Republic of Srpska. Other latest achievements of the Quartet include performances on concert stages such as Manarat al Saadiyat as part of the Abu Dhabi Classics Festival, season opening of Chamber music in Desert at Qasr al Sarab within Liwa Oasis in United Arab Emirates, concert at Centre Culturel de Serbie in Paris, the first performance in China at Tianjin Concert Hall and in the Serbian Cultural centre in Paris, France. Тheir concert at Studio 6 Belgrade was broadcasted live by the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation Digital Channel. In January 2016 the Quartet members were mentors for their young colleagues at the Winter String Quartet Workshop in Podgorica, Montenegro. The Quartet has performed during the Workshop at the Modern Gallery in Podgorica. In June 2015, in cooperation with clarinetist Ognjen Popović, the Belgrade Philharmonic String Quartet has published their first compact disc containing compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. In the season 2013/14, the Quartet and their guests appeared in a cycle of five chamber music concerts named Quartet+1, in the Belgrade Philharmonic Concert Hall. In addition to compositions for the string quartet, this cycle also included quintets with two violas, with clarinet, piano and voice.
In the season 2012/13, the Quartet gave a memorable performance of a Concerto for String quartet and Orchestra by Erwin Schulhoff at the Kolarac Great Hall, with the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra and their Chief Conductor of that time Muhai Tang.
Other performances in Serbia and the region have taken the Belgrade Philharmonic String Quartet to the opening of the Classic Fest Pančevo, the European Day celebration in Belgrade, the Conference Creative Europe at Kulturni Centar Grad, concerts on board the Amadeus Royal ship on the way from Vienna to the Black Sea, concerts in Gračanica, Kragujevac, Inđija, Mostar, and Trebinje, as well as the appearances in Gornji Milanovac, Subotica, Vršac and the village of Stanišor in Kosovo and Metohija, as part of humanitarian and social responsibility projects of the Belgrade Philharmonic.