Organization

BEMUS Festival

Conductor

Bojan Suđić

Singer

Bass-baritone

Bryn Terfel

Soprano

Sofija Petrovic

Others

Virtuosi Festival Orchestra

Opening Ceremony

Belgrade

Serbia

Kolarac Concert Hall

Opening Ceremony: Concert

Public

Concert

Approved

Leading name among Serbian music conductors, Bojan Suđić is a chief conductor of the Symphony Orchestra and Choir of Radio Television of Serbia. He is also a full professor of conducting at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade.

From the very beginning, his work was distinguished by the exceptional breadth and diversity of the choral, symphonic and incidental music repertoires, outstanding achievements in all these areas and numerous awards – starting from the First Prize at the Yugoslav contest of young artists in Zagreb in 1989, through the most significant professional recognitions in domestic music: awards at the International Review of Composers, annual awards of the Association of the Music Artists, City of Belgrade awards, Golden Link awards, the magazine Muzika Klasika annual awards, Vuk awards and others. He intensively performs on domestic and foreign scenes.

Since 1992, he has been a permanent conductor of the RTS Symphony Orchestra and Choir, with whom he performed a great number of choral, symphonic and vocal symphonic achievements of world and domestic heritage, of which many were premiere performances. Most of these concerts were recorded for radio and TV, and they are the foundation of extensive Suđić’s discography.

He has worked with Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra since 1989, and with this ensemble, as a permanent guest conductor, was on tour in China, performed at BEMUS and conducted numerous concerts featuring, among others, Nigel Kennedy and Maxim Vengerov. The crown of this collaboration represents the CD with the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff.

In 1993, he dedicated himself to opera conducting, leading the ensemble of the National Theatre Opera in Belgrade, and performing as its conductor in 1999/2000 season. Bojan Suđić was General Music Director of the Opera was in 2004/2005. He recorded many performances of the standard ballet and opera repertoire in his rich biography, while among the guest appearances, the performance at the Athens Festival in 1998 (Carmen) stands out.

Bojan Suđić becomes a guest conductor of the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, in 1998, by deepening this cooperation he gained the place of resident conductor in 2000. With this ensemble he performed more than 150 opera and ballet performances, and the peak of the joint work, with the 10 premieres, was the performance at the festival in Wiesbaden in 2003 (Swan Lake). He also enjoyed fruitful collaboration with the Finnish National Opera Ensemble in Helsinki. Bojan Suđić was a guest conductor of over 40 orchestras in the region and the world, among which are the RTV Symphony Orchestra of RTV Slovenia from Ljubljana, the Montenegrin Symphony Orchestra, the Croatian RTV Symphony Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra and the Rijeka Philharmonic Orchestra (Croatia), the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra in Skopje, The Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra from Sofia and the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra (Bulgaria), the Budapest Symphony Orchestra (Hungary), the Rome Symphony Orchestra (Italy), the Carinthian Symphony Orchestra from Klagenfurt (Austria), the Novosibirsk Philharmonic, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and The State Symphony Capella of Russia from Saint Petersburg (Russia), the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish National Opera and the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra (Finland), the Odense Symphony Orchestra (Denmark), the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, the Vesteras Symphony Orchestra and the Umea Symphony Orchestra (Sweden), the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra (Brazil), and the Chilean Symphony Orchestra from Santiago de Chile. Since 2010 he has been working intensively with OFUNAM Orchestra from Mexico City, with which, in 2016, he conducted a solemn concert for the 80th anniversary of the existence of this ensemble with violinist Vadim Repin.

Bojan Suđić as a professor has been conducting the Faculty of Music Symphony Orchestra since 2005. Under his conductor’s guidance, the students of Faculty of Music performed the demanding score of Mahler’s 8th Symphony, Shostakovich ‘s 1st and 5th symphony, The Requiem of Berlioz, Verdi and Mozart, Scheherazade of Rimsky-Korsakov, Pictures at an Exhibition of Mussorgsky, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3. and No. 5, Sibelius’s 2nd Symphony, Mozart’s Symphony No. 39, etc. with remarkable success.

Performing with various ensembles, Suđić accomplishes the mission of presenting new works of domestic authors and those lesser-known or, due to their complexity, rarely performed works of world historical heritage. Since his return to the RTS, as the artistic director and conductor in 2005, Bojan Suđić has been continually expanding the repertoire of the RTS Symphony Orchestra and Choir, gaining recognition of the music audience for the high quality of performed concerts and recordings.

 

Welsh bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel has established an extraordinary career, performing regularly on the prestigious concert stages and opera houses of the world.

After winning the Song Prize at the 1989 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, Sir Bryn made his professional operatic debut in 1990 as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte with Welsh National Opera. He made his international operatic debut in 1991 as Speaker in Die Zauberflöte at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels and made his American debut in the same year as Figaro with Santa Fe Opera. Other roles performed during his career include Méphistophélès in Faust, both the Title Role and Leporello in Don Giovanni, Jochanaan in Salome, the Title Role in Gianni Schicchi, Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress, Wolfram in Tannhäuser, Balstrode in Peter Grimes and Four Villains in Les contes d’Hoffmann.

Sir Bryn marked his 50th birthday and twenty-five years in the profession with a special one-off Gala Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, presented by Hollywood star Michael Sheen. The celebrations continued at Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre, where he sang Scarpia in a special concert performance of Tosca with Welsh National Opera.

Recent performances include Balstrode for Wiener Staatsoper and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Hollander in The Flying Dutchman for Grange Park Opera, Wiener Staatsoper and his house debut at ABAO Bilbao Opera, Falstaff for Zürich Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Münich and Grange Park Opera, Scarpia for Opera National de Paris and Opera Națională București, Don Pizarro in Fidelio at the Schloßberg, Graz, Don Pasquale  at the Royal Opera House, Sweeney Todd for Zürich Opera and Boris Godunov for Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Royal Opera House.

Other operatic highlights to date include his debut in the role of Hans Sachs in the critically acclaimed production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Welsh National Opera, Wotan in The Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera, New York, his debut in the role of Reb Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof for Grange Park Opera, Sweeney Todd for English National Opera and hosting a four day festival, Brynfest, at the Southbank Centre, London as part of the Southbank Centre’s Festival of the World.

Equally at home on the concert platform, his highlights range from the opening ceremony of the Wales Millennium Centre, BBC Last Night of the Proms and the Royal Variety Show to a Gala Concert with Andrea Bocelli in Central Park, New York and curating a special Christmas concert and live international stream for the Metropolitan Opera’s Met Stars Live in Concert series from Brecon Cathedral, Wales. Recent performances include a series of concerts with Orchester National de Bretagne in Rennes and Paris, celebrating 250 years since Beethoven’s birth with orchestral arrangements of Beethoven’s Celtic Songs. He has given recitals all around the world and for nine years, he hosted his own festival in Faenol, North Wales.

Sir Bryn is a Grammy, Classical Brit and Gramophone Award winner with a discography encompassing operas of Mozart, Wagner and Strauss, and more than fifteen solo discs including Lieder, American musical theatre, Welsh songs and sacred repertory.

Bryn was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to Opera in 2003, was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2006 and received a knighthood for his service to music in 2017. This year, he was honoured with the title of Austrian Kammersänger for his services to the Wiener Staatsoper and awarded an European Cultural Award at the Tonhalle, Zurich, in recognition of his extraordinary music career. He was the last recipient of the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation and in 2015, he was given The Freedom of the City of London.

 

Sofija Petrović was born in Belgrade, 1991. She started playing the violin at the age of 9, then the viola and since then she has been involved in the world of classical music. At the age of 18, she won first place at the Lazar Jovanović competition in the category of young singers. She graduated in solo singing at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade in the class of Russian soprano Ljudmila Gross-Popović in 2014. As an excellent student of Faculty of Music, she received a scholarship from the city of Belgrade. She performed in her hometown at concerts at the Kolarac’s Endowment, the National Theater, the Russian House, the Students Cultural Center, Belgrade Youth Center, House of the Army of Serbia, and others. In 2012, as the youngest of all participants, Sofija Petrović entered the finals of the Ferruccio Tagliavini competition in Austria, where mezzo-soprano Elena Obrascova was an honorary member of the commission. After this success, Obraskova invited Sofia to participate in her workshops in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In May 2013, Sofija Petrović participated in Marijana Mijanović's baroque music and alto performance masterclass. In July and August of the same year, she received a scholarship from Daniel Ferro, professor emeritus of singing at the Juilliard School in New York, to participate in his masterclass in Tuscany.At the invitation of singing professor Bill Schuman, she auditioned for the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. She has been training at this school since September 2014 and there she prepared the roles of Mimi in La Boheme, Giorgetta in Il tabarro and Fiora in the opera L'amore dei tre re, and also sang various concerts. In June 2015, she was invited to work with soprano Martina Arroyo on the role of Madam Butterfly in New York. At the same time, she participated in Ludovic Tezier's masterclass at the Opera National de Lorraine, where she sang an aria from Boito's Mephistopheles.In November of the same year, Sofija Petrović moved to Paris and joined the Opera Studio of the Paris Opera. She also collaborated with Luciana d'Intino, Ildar Abdrazakov, Raina Kabaivanska, Sondra Radvanovsky on masterclasses at the Opera... At the Opera Bastille, she had numerous concert and opera performances at the Opera Studio, playing the role of Mrs. Coyle in Benjamin Britten's opera Owen Wingrave and the role of Opernsangerin in the opera La Ronde by the Belgian composer Phillip Boesmans. At the Opéra Garnier, she performed at several concerts and performed parts from the operas Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, Madame Butterfly by Puccini, Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz and others.On the big stage of the Opera Bastille, in May 2019, she sang the role of Aksinya in the new production of Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. Also in the 2018/19 season at the Paris Opera, she covered the role of Cassandra in Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens. Then at the Opéra Bastille she played the role of Mademoiselle Jouvenot in Adriana Lecouvreur’s opera in the 2019/20 season, and she also prepared the title roles in the operas Tosca (cover at the Macerata Festival) and Francesco da Rimini by the composer Riccardo Zandonai in Berlin Opera (Deutsche Oper Berlin, cover) in the 2020/21 season. She sang Lady Macbeth's aria for French actress Fanny Ardent's short film Magie Noire.She often performs for the French brand Hermès at the Opéra Garnier and the Grand Palais in Paris, as well as in Taipei (Taiwan). She also performed at the Serbian Cultural Center in Paris with pianist Đorđe Nešić, where they presented Yugoslav creativity in classical music.On the concert stage, she collaborated with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and maestro Srba Dinić, also with the Innphilharmonie Rosenheim Orchestra, interpreting arias from the operas Cavalleria rusticana, Norma, A Masked Ball, the Queen of Spades... She played the lead role of Esmeralda in the opera Notre Dame by Franz Schmidt at the St. Gallen Festival in July 2021. She performed at several concerts with the RTS Symphony Orchestra and conductor Bojan Sudjic.Sofija Petrović has recently been the creative ambassador of the national platform Serbia creates under the government of the Republic of Serbia. In September 2022, she made her debut in the role of Carmen at the Serbian National Theater in Novi Sad.

English

Opening Ceremony by Various, Fra (2022/2022), Dirigent Bojan Suđić, Kolarac Concert Hall, Belgrade, Serbia

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