Today the Belgrade Philharmonic bids a last farewell to Isidora Žebeljan. We lament the prematurely terminated oeuvre of this Serbian composer, whose works are performed regularly by music ensembles around the world.

The Belgrade Philharmonic played her music on several occasions. The first time was in 1993, under Maestro Aleksandar Rudin, when her first symphony, her student work, Escenas Picaras, was performed at the BEMUS Festival with great success, for which she later received the award of the Third International Forum of Composers in Sremski Karlovci. Then, in 2001, the Belgrade Philharmonic and soloist Aneta Ilić, performed a cycle of five songs, Rukoveti, on two occasions, at a regular concert at Kolarac Hall and later at the opening ceremony of the International Forum of Composers. Isidora made her last bow to the audience in 2006 after the Belgrade Philharmonic’s performance of The Horses of St. Mark, illumination for orchestra, at the BEMUS Festival.

We were looking forward to the premiere of her Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, commissioned by the Belgrade Philharmonic for Stefan Dora, solo hornist of the Berlin Philharmonic, which we planned to perform at the end of January 2021.