Revived Festival Brings Early Music Back to Belgrade

Photo courtesy of www.festivalranemuzike.com

The revived Festival of Early Music - the first since 1996 - is taking place at St Peter's church in Belgrade, bringing seven ensembles and 14 soloists from the US, Britain, Brazil and Germany to Serbia.

The festival started on Saturday with a programme “Perpetua Lux” performed by the ensemble “Renesans”.

Before the festival closes on June 17, it will present various genres of “early” music, which includes any kind of music written from earliest times to the Baroque era and whose performance has been reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises, instruments and other contemporary evidence.

The festival first took place in 1991 with the help of the Cultural ministry and the City of Belgrade. Over the years it became a gathering place for many music ensembles from all over the world until it stopped in 1996.

However, an association of citizens who study and perform early music under the name Studio for Early Music, established in 1992, decided to celebrate their 20^th anniversary by re-establishing the festival, without financial support from Serbian cultural institutions.

Predrag Gosta, festival's art director | Photo courtesy of www.predraggosta.com

“A desire to reestablish the festival has existed for years, but the conditions were not met until recently, because of the financial situation, and because the venue of the festival (St Peter's Church) was long under reconstruction,” said Predrag Gosta, the festival art director.

All the musicians and ensembles will play without remuneration before Belgrade audiences, and the price of the tickets is symbolic – at only 100 dinars (less than 1 euro) per concert.

Each day two concerts are scheduled in the church in the centre of Belgrade. Besides “Renesans”, the oldest Sebian ensemble performing early music, a few younger ones will be presenting themselves, including “Temenos”, “VisAntiqua”, “Belgrade Baroque”, “Flauto Dolce”, as well as one of the best performers of Baroque music from the US, “New Trinity Baroque” whose manager is also Predrag Gosta, the festival art director.

The repertoire of Flauto Dolce includes music from the 12th century to the second part of the 18th century performed on replicas of historical instruments and sometimes including costumes related to a certain epoch.

This ensemble, with German solist Karolina Bäter, will perform mostly pieces for a flute quartet, in a programme called “Il pastor fido” (The Good Shepherd), which includes pieces from Bach, Grosse and Boismortier.

“New Trinity Baroque” will perform a programme of concerts for violin, violoncello, flute and strings written by Antonio Vivaldi.

The festival will also include concerts by soloists Dragan Karajic, of Serbia, Andre Laurent O'Neil, from the US, Meilo Tome, Milan Popovic, from Serbia, and others. The complete programme of the Belgrade Early Music Festival is available here.