On Friday, September 30, 2022, the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra will officially start its Season 22/23 with a concert dedicated to its late director, Ivan Tasovac, opening the doors of its home at Grand Hall of Kolarac Foundation at 8 p.m. A carefully selected repertoire for the night will be represented by a piece of the composer Aleksandar Sedlar, specially commissioned for this purpose, as well as the national premiere of Isidora Zebeljan’s piece together with the clarinetist Joan Enric Lluna and Paul Daniel as a conductor.
The entire season from September 2022 to June 2023 is titled On the Right Track and is dedicated to virtual trips to places and cities around the world, starting from hometown Belgrade, naturally. Under the slogan BPO loves Tasa, the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra is paying tribute with this concert to the beloved Tasovac, who died a year ago.
A musical homage to Belgrade will ceremonially be paid by the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra’s newest masterpiece of the composer Aleksandar Sedlar, commissioned by the BPO, known as one of the most authentic and versatile musicians of his generation. The composition Ode to Belgrade will be an opportunity for the audience to participate in it with a special invitation from the composer:
Ode to Belgrade is kind of a love letter to my hometown, but it also represents the disagreement with everything that makes Belgrade the way it is today. The people in Belgrade today are specific, often debating about almost everything, but one (and perhaps the only) thing they have in common, and which can unite them is their love for Belgrade. At the end of the piece, all of them together, with all their differences, proud and honored, sing for their city. That was my idea, I hope that together we will turn it into a reality. So, come sing with us! Sing for our Belgrade!, concludes the composer.
The opening performance will be followed by the Serbian premiere of the Concerto for clarinet and orchestra Flute and Flamingos by Isidora Zebeljan, the most prominent and most staged Serbian composer on the world music scene. Her work is considered one of the most distinctive expressions in contemporary music of the first decades of the 21st century. According to the author, this piece tells the story of a magical flute that sings about the truth, but no one can hear its song, because no one in the world believes in the truth anymore. Flute and Flamingos will be performed by the winner of the Musical Youth Competition in Belgrade, clarinetist Joan Enric Lluna with the orchestra.
The second part of the program is reserved for Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 5 – a symphonic work that was performed many times by the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra in its hundred-year-long history. On this occasion, for the first time under the conducting baton of Paul Daniel, principal conductor of the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, who has performed many times in his career as a guest or permanent conductor with major orchestras and operas around the world, such as the English National Opera, the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden, as well as the Metropolitan opera in New York.
