As part of this year’s choir season, on the occasion of Stanislav Binički’s significant jubilee – 150 years since his birth and 80 years since his death, on Wednesday, November 23, at 8 p.m., in the ceremonial hall of the Serbian Army House, the Choir of Radio and Television of Serbia will perform. The choir will be led by the conductor Hadži Jakov Milutinović, with piano collaboration with pianist Milivoj Veljić and musicologist Ivana Neimarević, who will present the theme of the concert evening, as well as the life of the composer.
The young conductor Hadži Jakov Milutinović, who, in addition to being a conducting student at the Faculty of Music, shows his talent, giftedness and knowledge through compositional work, but also constant involvement with the children’s choir of the Church of St. Basil of Ostrog and with the Choir of the Serbian Radio and Television. Hadži Jakov describes the process of realizing this project as a long-term work that required great commitment, thoroughness and the ability to select and prepare works so that the image and work of the composer are presented in the best possible way.
Hadži Jakov Milutinović: “This is a project we have been working on for months; the choir editors and I went through Stanislav Binički’s entire choral oeuvre, from his student works to his mature works, and we selected an hour of his best choral music. The first part of the program will include his integral funeral dirge and fragments from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, while the second part of the concert will consist of secular choral and several solo songs performed by soloists of our ensemble. What I would also highlight is the collaboration with our piano collaborator Milivoj Veljić, as well as with musicologist Ivana Neimarević, who prepared a type of text that will tell us something more about Stanislav Binički himself, his life, work, character and work.”
The young artist expresses his satisfaction for the trust shown to him through a lot of gratitude, but also modesty, trying to maintain the quality, tradition and unity of choral performance. “Although I have been collaborating with the RTS choir as an accompanist for several years, this will be my first all-night concert with them. For me, as a young conductor, it is certainly an extremely great honor to stand in front of them as a leader, because it is an ensemble made up of exceptional professionals, who have collaborated with a large number of conductors, and all those great conductors breathe in a specific way through that ensemble and decades of choral experience that is grown there. The choral tradition is at an exceptional level; of course, that impresses every conductor, especially me, who is just at the beginning of my career.”