Music of Serbia

Part of a series on the
Culture of Serbia
History Middle Ages Monarchs
People
Languages Serbian language Old Serbian
Traditions Dress Kinship
Folklore
Cuisine
Festivals
Religion Christianity Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Roman Catholicism Protestantism Hinduism Islam Judaism
Art Architecture Music Composers (list) Painters (category) Sculptors (category) Heraldry
Literature Comics Epic poetry Writers (category)
Music and Performing arts Dances Theatres (category) Actors (category) Composers (category)
Media Television Cinema
Sport
Monuments World Heritage Sites Serbian Cultural Heritage lists Forts and castles Palaces and manor houses Monasteries
Symbols Flag Coat of arms National anthem
Organisations Matica srpska Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts National Museum of Serbia Museums
Serbia portal
v t e

Music of Serbia represents the

Church music was performed throughout medieval Serbia by choirs or individual singers. The songs performed at the time were derived from the Octoechos (Osmoglasnik), a collection of religious songs dedicated to Jesus. Composers from this era include nun Jefimija, monks Kir Stefan the Serb, Isaiah the Serb, and Nikola the Serb, who together belong to the "Serbo-Byzantine school".^[2][3][4]

Aside from church music, the medieval era in Serbia included

From the Habsburg rule, Serbia was enriched by Western music.

Classical music

Composer and

During the 19th and 20th centuries numerous bands, both military and civilian, contributed to the development of music culture in Belgrade and other Serbian cities and towns. Prior to Mokranjac's era, Serbia's representatives of the Romantic period were world-renowned violinist Dragomir Krančević, pianist Sidonija Ilić, pianist and composer Jovanka Stojković and opera singer Sofija Sedmakov who achieved success performing in opera houses of Germany in the 1890s. For example, the promenade concert tradition was first established by The Serbian Prince Band founded in 1831, and its first conductor was Joseph Shlezinger, who composed music for the band based on traditional Serbian songs. This was a period when the first choral societies, then mostly sung in German and Italian language, were being organized. Later, the first Serbian language works for choirs were written by Kornelije Stanković.

The Serbian composers Petar Konjović, Stevan Hristić and Miloje Milojević, all born in the 1880s, were the most eminent composers of their generation. They maintained the national expression and modernized romanticism in the direction of impressionism.

The best-known composers born around 1910 studied in Europe, mostly in Prague. Ljubica Marić, Stanojlo Rajičić, Milan Ristić took influence from Schoenberg, Hindemith and Haba, rejecting the "conservative" work of prior Serbian composers, seeing it as outdated and the wish for national expression was outside their interest.^[9]

Other famous

Ethno music

The ethno genre encompasses both vocal and non-vocal (instrumental) music. Instruments include

The Serbian folk music is both rural (izvorna muzika) and urban (starogradska muzika) and includes a two-beat dance called kolo, which is a circle dance with almost no movement above the waist, accompanied by instrumental music made most often with an accordion, but also with other instruments: frula (traditional kind of a recorder), tamburica, or accordion. The Kolos usually last for about 5–13 minutes. Modern accordionists include Mirko Kodić and Ljubiša Pavković. Some kolos are similar to the Hungarian csárdás in that they are slow at the onset and gradually increase their speed until reaching a climax towards the end.

Famous performers of Serbian folk music are Predrag Gojković Cune, Predrag Živković Tozovac, Miroslav Ilić, Lepa Lukić, Vasilija Radojčić, Šaban Bajramović, Staniša Stošić, Toma Zdravković and others. Yugoslav singer, actress and writer, Olivera Katarina, has performed music of various genres, varying from Serbian traditional to pop music, and in numerous languages. She held 72 consecutive concerts in Paris Olympia.

New folk

During the 70s Serbian folk music started to use elements from oriental music, distancing from the original sound, style that is titled novokomponovana muzika ("newly composed music"). Soon many neo-folk singers emerged: Šaban Šaulić, Jašar Ahmedovski, Mitar Mirić, Nada Topčagić, Šeki Turković, Ipče Ahmedovski, Ljuba Aličić, Zorica Brunclik, Marinko Rokvić and others. Serbian folk scene was not homogeneous nor uniform. On one hand, following Western models, Vesna Zmijanac was creating a star-image, being sex-symbol, fashionista and gay icon as well. On the other hand, singers like Vera Matović, for example, have created folk subgenre, sort of rural folk, singing about works in field, domestic animals and themes from Serbian village. Louis was combining Serbian folk music with jazz. Their albums were sponsored and songs were broadcast on the Radio Television of Serbia, which led to domination of this genre.

Balkan brass

Brass bands, known as trubači (

Various sources suggest that

Most prominent pop artists from the 2010s include: Sara Jo, Nikolija, Edita Aradinović, Teodora Džehverović, Anastasija Ražnatović, Elena Kitić, Angellina, Breskvica and Hurricane (Serbian band).

Rock music

As a member of the

Popular folk music, or simply pop-folk, gained in popularity during the 1980s when elements of

Even after the downfall of Milošević, pop-folk continued to stay popular. In the 2000s Serbian record label Grand Production gathered most of the country's pop-folk performers, such as Indira Radić, Saša Matić, Seka Aleksić, Đani and Dara Bubamara. Their televised singing contest, called Zvezde Granda, also brought a new generation of singers, which includes Tanja Savić, Milica Todorović, Rada Manojlović, Milan Stanković, Milica Pavlović, Aleksandra Prijović and Tea Tairović.

Jazz

Jazz in Serbia appears in the 1920s when Markus Blam formed first jazz orchestra Studentski Micky Jazz. Jazz music was played mostly in salons and clubs, but it is also known that jazz orchestras toured in spas over Serbia. This style of music has been present on the radio as well as in specialized magazines. Radio Belgrade started to work in 1929, every night after 22:30h Radio Jazz Orchestra played popular songs. First jazz society in Serbia was set up in 1953, but to the development of jazz the most contributed hosting famous musicians, among whom was Louis Armstrong in 1959 and 1960. The first Serbian musicians to rise to international fame were Mladen Guteša who worked for famous musicians such as Lee Konitz, Benny Goodman and others and Duško Gojković. These two entered The 1956 Encyclopedia Yearbook of Jazz of Leonard Feather. Other prominent names of Serbian jazz include Bora Roković who composed jazz suite The Human Piano, Mihailo Živanović, Branislav Kovačev, Branko Pejaković, Milan Lulić, Boris Jojić, Jovan Miković and others.^[17] Among the most popular singers of jazz and blues in Serbia was Šaban Bajramović known as King of Romani music, who was included in the Time magazines list of top 10 blues singers in the world.^[18] Vladan Mijatovic (Jazz pianist) is the young ambassador of the Serbian Jazz music in North America.

Hip-hop

Serbian hip hop emerged in the early 80s among the

In a review of Konstrakta's song "In corpore sano", Petar Popović considered her a performer that "is rising above the existing genres and offering a different universe".^[19] Her musical work earned her the title of the "Nedeljnik Person of the Year".^[20]

Festivals

Exit is a summer music festival which is held at the Petrovaradin Fortress in the city of Novi Sad, officially proclaimed as the "Best Major European Festival" at the EU Festival Awards. Other festivals include Belgrade Beer Fest in Belgrade, Gitarijada in Zaječar, Nišville in Niš and Guča Trumpet Festival in Guča.

In the town of Guča, near the city of

Serbia debuted at Eurovision as an independent country in

• List of best-selling albums in Serbia
• Music of Southeastern Europe
• Music of Yugoslavia

References

Sources

• Burton, Kim. "Balkan Beats". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 273–276. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books.
  ISBN 1-85828-636-0
• Đurić-Klajn, Stana (1972). A Survey of Serbian Music Through the Ages. Belgrade: Association of Composers of Serbia.
• Hudson, Robert. "Songs of seduction: popular music and Serbian nationalism." Patterns of prejudice 37.2 (2003): 57–176.
• Jakovljević, Andrija (1984). "Musical Works of Serbian Composers Stefan and Nikola the Serb from 14th C - Bilingual Anthology of Great Laura (E-108)" (PDF). Balcanica (15): 69–82.
• Milošević-Đorđević, Nada (1995). "The Oral Tradition". The History of Serbian Culture. Edgware: Porthill Publishers. pp. 147–163.
• Pejović, Roksanda (1995a). "Medieval Music". The History of Serbian Culture. Edgware: Porthill Publishers. pp. 133–136.
• Pejović, Roksanda (1995b). "Musical Composition and Performance from the Eighteenth Century to the Present". The History of Serbian Culture. Edgware: Porthill Publishers. pp. 243–254.
• Pejović, Roksanda (2013). Musical Instruments in Medieval Serbia. Belgrade: University of Arts.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Music of Serbia.

• Music of Serbia at
  Curlie
• Project Rastko category (some text in English, RealAudio church choirs)
• The History Serbian Culture – Some facts about medieval Serbian music
• Serbian Cultural Association Opleanc – Descriptions of Serbian folk dance choreographies
• Traditional music album