VOJVODINA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Continuing the tradition of Vojvodina Symphonists, a reputable ensemble of high interpretation level at the national artistic scene the orchestra was established in February 2011 as Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra, organised on “staggione” ensemble principle. During the last season of 2021/2022 the ensemble celebrated the tenth anniversary of successfully implemented instituonalisation and until now it has performed at almost 160 concerts, achieving a significant level of music playing and good interpretation standards. Insisting on diversity of classical, and sometimes of a wider repertoire in terms of genre (in particular when it comes to more popular, so-called Gala New Year’s concerts), the orchestra has presented itself the best until now in the late-Romanticism pieces of symphony and concert literature, capturing the audience with its rich sound, wide dynamic scale and rich cantilenas, and it has also proven itself through interpretations of 20th century pieces, as well as pieces of contemporary national authors.
Within the previous period, the orchestra has performed successfully more than seventy premiere programmes with participation of internationally recognised national and foreign conductors. Among renowned guest artists of international musical scene that the orchestra has co-operated with it is important to mention the maestros such as Saulius Sondeckis, Marco Parisotto, Mats Liljefors, Marcus Poschner, Ligia Amadio, Phillip Pickett, Francesco la Vecchia, Bundit Ungrangasee, Mladen Tarbuk, Ilmar Lapins, Emil Tabakov, Eduard Topchjan, Tigran Haknazarijan, Lior Shambadal, Klaudio Vandeli, Filip Grinberg, and Berislav Skenderović, and attractive soloists such as Valery Oistrakh, Martin Kofler, Sreten Krstić, Cyprien Katsaris, Narek Haknazarijan, Aleksandar Buzlov, Khachaatur Almazian, Lorenzo Gatto, Bettina Ranch, Irakli Murjikneli, Ivona Sobotka, Tatjana Samuil, Itamar Zorman, Aleksandar Madžar, Rita Kinka, Jasminka Stančul, Christof Berner, Nemanja Radulović, Katarina Jovanović, Nebojša Jovan Živković, Laura Levai Aksin, Roman Simović, Xavier Phillips, Jean-Marc Phillips Varjabedian, Nicolas Altstaedt, Maja Bogdanović, Milijana Nikolić, Dejan Bogdanović, Anjelo Deziderio, Mladen Čolić, Ratimir Martinović, Aleksandar Tasić, Ksenija Janković, Terem Quartet, Janoska ensemble and many other exceptional music performers. According to the expert critics, as well as the involved guest-conductors and soloists, Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra has reached a high level of interpretation of a respectable professional ensemble and due to its position at a national level it participates regularly at Novi Sad Music Festivities.
In July 2014, Vojvodina Symphonists entered the international “waters” for the first time and they presented themselves at the 60th Split Summer and 65th Dubrovnik Summer Festival. The recognition to our ensemble came also from the Magazine Musica Classica whose jury awarded it the Orchestra of the Year Prize for 2014 for its successful work. In November 2015, the Orchestra had its first acclaimed performance in the great hall of the Kolarac Endowment Hall in Belgrade and in October 2016 at Belgrade Music Festival in that same hall.
Since September of the jubilee season of 2021/2022, the Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra has an appointed Chief conductor, Aleksandar Marković (who is currently running his second mandate at this function), a renowned artist with international career with whom they have performed several exceptional concerts until now. During this richer than usual season, the ensemble has recorded concerts with guest conductors Bojan Suđić and Premil Petrović, as well as Novi Sad artists Aleksandar Kojić and Mikica Jevtić. They also had great performances with our and foreign soloists, including those from the younger generation such as Irena Josifoska, Aleksandra Šuklar and Robert Lakatoš, but also long established worldwide artists Radovan Vlatković, Kemal Gekić, Ivo Pogorelić, Stefan Milenković and Roman Simović. They played music under the conductorship of Ejub Gulijev, Srboljub Dinić and Aleksandar Marković, who in November 2021 also led a magnificent performance of Verdi’s Requiem realized in co-operation with the Opera Choir of the Serbian National Theatre and an international quartet of soloists. Marković’s interpretation of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony in June this year was also a great success, so that the beginning of the current season 2022/23 was marked by an open-air concert (4th Corso) where our orchestra, led by its chief conductor, played with Julian Rachlin, one of the most famous violinists of our time. At this year’s Nomus, the ensemble collaborates with Gordan Nikolić again, after March 2021, as a soloist and conductor, and in November, in addition to the concerts in Novi Sad, he is also expected to perform at the Belgrade Music Festival.
Aleksandar Marković, chief conductor
He graduated in Leopold Hager’s class at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, and was awarded an honorary degree at the “Chigiana” Music Academy in Siena, where he attended master classes. He was the recipient of a scholarship from the “Herbert von Karajan” Foundation and the winner of the 7th International Competition “Grzegorz Fitelbeg” in the Polish city of Katowice. Aleksandar Marković has a wide symphonic and opera repertoire in a stylistic range from classical and romantic to the most contemporary compositions. His interest in the music of the 20th century and the avant-garde is reflected in the performance of works by Hartman, Siske, Istvan Roža, Ligeti, Lutoslavski, Glas, Pincer, Yusupov, Salonen.
As music director of Opera “North” in Leeds, he conducted Janáček’s Jenuf, as well as Strauss’ Cavalier with a Rose, and he also led several orchestral concerts of this house with an extensive program consisting of works by Mozart, Schumann, Wagner and Richard Strauss. He had an even more varied repertoire with the opera ensemble of the Tyrolean State Theater in Innsbruck, with which he prepared extremely successful and critically acclaimed performances of Salome, The Haunted Dutchman, Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Cavaliera rusticana and Jaccio, The Marriage of Figaro, Romeo and Juliet, La Traviata, Nabucco , Norma and Swan Lake.
In the opera field, his collaboration with the National Theater in Belgrade is also significant, where he worked on a new production of Verdi’s The Power of Destiny, and he was also a guest at the National Theater in Prague and the State Theater in Salzburg. He celebrated “Wagner’s year” in 2013 (two centuries since the composer’s birth) with a new performance of The Haunted Dutchman at the Slovenian National Theater in Ljubljana and a concert performance of Rienzi with the Munich Philharmonic in Gasteig.
During the time spent with the Brno Philharmonic, in addition to regular season concerts, he performed with the orchestra in the Vienna Concert Hall, the Great Hall of the Salzburg Festspielhaus, the Palace of Arts in Budapest, the Brucknerhaus in Linz, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Antwerp, the “Reduta” Hall in Bratislava, as well as on a big tour in Japan. In the fall of 2014, they performed a program of Richard Wagner’s music in Graz, in the famous “Stefanie” Hall on the occasion of the opening of the Musikferain in that city, as part of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Styria.
Marković’s cooperation with famous world symphony ensembles extends, among others, to the Royal Philharmonic from Liverpool, the symphony orchestras of Birmingham, Ireland, Odense, Bournemouth, Malmö, Scottish BBC, Croatian Radio Television and Radio Prague, the Qatar, Slovenian and Slovak Philharmonics. , Belgian National Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, “Beethoven” Orchestra from Bonn, Konzerthaus Orchestra from Berlin and others.
Among other conducting engagements, performances with the Symphony Orchestra of Spanish Radio and Television, the Dresden, Stuttgart, Belgrade and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestras, the State Chapel from Halle, the Vienna and Prague Symphony Orchestras, the “Mozarteum” Orchestra from Salzburg, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Braunschweig State Orchestra , the “Janaček” Philharmonic from Ostrava, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, “Kremerat Baltika” and a number of other world-renowned European ensembles.
Since September 2021, he has been the chief conductor of the Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra.
Our team
Roman Bugar was born in 1985 in Zrenjanin. He became a student of Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, violin subsection in 2004 and in 2008 he began his master studies in Banja Luka by mentor prof. Uroša Pešica and subsequently prof. Marija Misita. In 2009 he restored Zrenjanin Chamber Orchestra, and the same year he became the concertmaster and conductor of the National board of Romanian minority. He was elected president of the Great folklore Festival of Romanians in Vojvodina in 2011 and two years later he founded Zrenjanin Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the first violin in “Panonija” string quartet and collaborates with different orchestras in Serbia.
In 2015, he was appointed acting director of Vojvodina Symphonic Orchestra. The same year he becomes the owner of Music studio M 2932. His hobby is fishing and is a great admirer of horse breeding.
Milica Antonić was born in 1989 in Novi Sad. After completing the basic studies (2012) at the Faculty of Economics, Subotica, University of Novi Sad, majoring in marketing, in 2014 she completed her master’s studies at the same faculty, majoring in management.
She works in the Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra as a financial manager since 2015.