In the first autumn days, from September 29 to October 2, the people of Sombor, as well as lovers of good music from other parts of Serbia, will be able to follow through and watch the jubilee, tenth in a row, Sombor Music Festivities, which in 2017 was the winner of the “Festival of regional importance” of the most prestigious magazine for classical music, Muzika klasika.This musical event, once better known as the Sombor Music Evenings, is considered one of the oldest classical music festivals, which was conceived by professor and pianist Dušan Trbojević back in 1961.His guiding thought was enlightenment, which followed the entire festival, because the goal was to educate a young audience.With a lot of love, dedication and effort, the professor successfully built the foundations of that music festival until the eighties of the previous century.After that, in 2012, professor and pianist Mihajlo Zurković, inspired by the celebratory character of the first classical music festival in the former Yugoslavia, launched the initiative to establish a new festival, which while nurturing tradition relies on old foundations, but with the application of modern, new ideas,meet today’s needs.
Therefore, a completely new festival is born, different in concept from the previous one and it gets the name Sombor Music Festivities.Guided by this, the organizers of the festival carefully design the concert program every year, carefully choose the participants, wanting to give the audience an unforgettable artistic experience through quality and, above all, mutual unity, naturalness and respect within art, aesthetics and human relations.On this occasion, we recorded a conversation with the artistic director of the festival, Mihajlo Zurković, who describes this year’s concept as very simple – because there is no concept.
FIRST NIGHT
MIHAJLO ZURKOVIĆ: In almost all festival editions, we had a festival theme, a guiding thought, within which we designed the concert program. This year’s jubilee, tenth Somus brings together artists, faithful friends of the festival, who, by bringing and sharing love, energy and music, largely built it as we know it today. Precisely because of that and because of them, Saša, Bojan, Mate, Mared, Zoran, Laura, Sonja and others were given free rein to conceive their own performances.
Regular visitors to this festival are witnesses of the great changes and concert events that have taken place in the past ten years, starting from the locations where the concerts were performed, such as the stage of the National Theater, the City Hall, the County Hall, the hall of the Sokolski dom, the hall of the newly opened Cultural Center, up to hosting the biggest music names such as: Nemanja Radulović, Stefan Milenković, Aleksandar Madžar, Rita Kinka, Mate Bekavac, Irena Grafenauer, William Hagen, David Castro-Balbi, Mairead Hickey, Santiago Cañón
Valencia, Ivan Karizna, Simon Trpčesko, Katarina Jovanović, Dejan Sinadinović, Ljubiša Jovanović, Kemal Gekić, Edin Karamazov, Lidija and Sanja Bizjak, Ratimir Martinović, Ognjen Popović, etc.The first concert night has the symbolic name of MEETINGS (Susretanja) and it will feature one of the faithful friends of the festival, pianist Aleksandar Madžar, who is coming for the third time, this time bringing cellist Adrian Brendle with him.
MIHAJLO ZURKOVIĆ: Aleksandar Madžar is a wonderful artist and man, a great friend of the festival, and to our great pleasure, Adrian Brendle, a top cellist from a famous British musical family, is coming with him, who, together with Saša, will, I’m sure, give us an unforgettable concert. On the same evening, at the concert called “Afterparty – jazz on Somus”, jazz pianist Bojan Zulfikarpašić will perform for the third time at the Sombor musical festivities. The first time he played together with the French saxophonist Julien Luro, and the second time with the pianist Vasil Hadžimanov. His performance at the tenth anniversary of Somus will be a combination of solo piano and electronics.
SECOND EVENING
MIHAJLO ZURKOVIĆ: Guided by Dušan Trbojević’s idea of enlightenment, we launched new cycles, for the youngest – “Children’s work” and “Carte blanche” for our most important living composers, but also evenings dedicated to artists from the field of musical creation close to classical music, such as jazz or author’s music.In those cycles, for these ten years, Sombor hosted artists such as: Isidora Žebeljan, Ivana Stefanović, Dejan Despić, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Bojan Zulfikarpašić, Vasil Hadžimanov, Julien Lourau, Kralj Čačka;I must also mention the unforgettable Sevdah evening arranged by Mate Bekavac…Within that cycle, our second concert evening is called MOZART TODAY(Mocart danas) and we will have the opportunity to host the composer Ivan Jevtić, whose work Concerto for Piano and Clarinet will be performed by the Maribor “Fb banda” – violinist Mairead Hickey, pianist Per Runberg and clarinetist Mate Bekavac.The composition consists of excellent artists, and the name of the ensemble attracts attention because it is associated with Facebook, but actually the abbreviation refers to the Philharmonic Band (filharmonijski bend), which clarinetist Mate Bekavac describes as a group of young musicians who, as he says, “in addition to routine work in home orchestras, they still want a differentcontact with music, where there are no trade unions and administrative rules that stifle sincere and dedicated music practice.Their only goal is: to learn and give, to be in mutual contact and to touch the audience with music – with such an attitude to interpret classical music from a different angle, without the usual patina of so-called serious music.Airy, with a smile and tears on his face…”.As the name suggests, Mozart’s works, or rather reminiscences of his works, will be performed.The audience will have the opportunity to hear compositions by contemporary authors who created inspired by Mozart’s compositions and in whose works hidden Mozart’s themes can often be heard.In a word, we have the interweaving of the past and the future, as Mate would say: “Mozart’s music and its resonance in the present are the themes of this concert, which offers us options on how to express respect, how to pay homage to the past and be inspired by it.”
THIRD EVENING
MIHAJLO ZURKOVIĆ: Throughout its short history, Somus has successfully cooperated with the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, starting with guest appearances by the Academy’s Symphony Orchestra and ending with student performances as part of the “Children’s Work” cycle. This time there will be an unusual duo of flute and guitar called CHAMBER DELICACY (Kamerna poslastica), which it really will be, because that combination of chamber sound is not often found, especially when it comes to excellent performers and regular teachers – flutist Laura Levai Aksin and guitarist Zoran Krajišnik.
On the same evening, there will be another concert by the “Fb banda” called THE AGONY OF TODAY (Agonija današnjice). With the desire to overcome all adversity with music, Mate described this program as: “a silent commentagary on events in today’s society”, and then added: “Catastrophes, wars and greed lead to suffering, losses and resignation of the spirit.”In music, we can find comfort, hope and balm for soul wounds – from ancient times to today, through the centuries”.
FOURTH EVENING
MIHAJLO ZURKOVIĆ: The festival has an exceptional cooperation with the “Petar Konjović” Music School. In addition to performing at the festival, its students are also volunteers at Somus and are given the opportunity to participate in every segment of the organization. On the other hand, we have always had the support of the school, which unselfishly lent us its premises for the implementation of master courses, brought students to concerts in an organized manner, and lent us its instruments and equipment. At the weekly matinee called STAIRWAY TO THE STARS, the school’s orchestra will perform, supplemented and reinforced by former students and students and professors of the school will perform as soloists at that concert. At the invitation of the conductor of the orchestra, Mina Bošnjak, Sonja Šarić and I gladly accepted to stand with the young musicians and perform with them.
And, finally, we close the festival with the GERMAN LYRICS concert. Sonja Šarić, from Sombor who performed at Somus a few years ago as a young yet unestablished artist, now returns to us as the winner of the first prize of the prestigious competition “Eva Marton” in Budapest. Together with the pianist Strahinja Đokić, who is also an excellent bass player, she will perform a very specific program – solo songs by Liszt, Strauss and Mahler.
The festival used to be held during the days of April, can the audience expect an autumn period for holding the festival in the future?
In its beginnings, Somus was held in the spring term of April, just like the old Sombor musical evenings. Last year, due to the pandemic, we had to postpone the date of the festival, and this year the same thing happened due to the availability of artists. So, as much as I think it is important to have an established annual date for holding any event, in this case Somus, due to the
complexity of the organization, the availability of artists, we are forced to change the established dates.
To what extent did living in Paris, getting to know and collaborating with big names change the way you look at music and break through the barriers and established patterns of performance here in Serbia? What are the differences between the artistic life in Paris and here…?
Due to my family situation and one little girl, Mia, I have been living between France and Serbia for the last 7 or 8 years. In Paris, I was lucky enough to listen to artists like Nelson Freire, Radu Lupu, Yuja Wang, Ivo Pogorelić, Daniil Trifonov, Grigory Sokolov, violinist Leonidas Kavakos, then the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the most important opera performances, etc. I also visited the most important classical music festivals in France. All those experiences left a deep mark on me. I would like to point out that some of the biggest classical music festivals are held in small towns all over France. I tried to transfer all the experiences and acquaintances with artists together with the pianist Lidija Bizjak to Sombor, at Somus. Therefore, Somus has unique programs and performers, concerts that are exclusive and cannot be heard in other cities in Serbia.
MESSAGE TO THE AUDIENCE:
The audience that visits Somus can expect good energy, the best musical experiences and artists, and a real festival atmosphere in a small town from Vojvodina. During these four festival days, I believe that it is possible to forget about all the turbulence, shocks, and accidents in our country and in the world. Music is what binds us all, through it we experience common emotions and purify our spirit. If something like this happened in other small towns of our country for one day, or four days, I think that our lives would be much better.
You can see more detailed information on their website https://www.somus.info/
Author: Katarina Georgijević
Translation: Jelena Čolović