Aleksandra Vrebalov (born September 22, 1970) is a Serbian composer based in New York City.

Biography

She studied composition with

Miroslav Statkic Miroslav may refer to: * Miroslav (given name), a Slavic masculine given name * ''Young America'' (clipper) or ''Miroslav'', an Austrian clipper ship in the Transatlantic case oil trade * Miroslav (Znojmo District), a town in the Czech Republic S ...

at Novi Sad University, then with

Zoran Erić Zoran Erić ( sr, Зоран Ерић / ''Zoran Erić'', ) (born 6 October 1950) is a Serbian composer based in Belgrade. He teaches composition, orchestration, theater and film music at the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, Serb ...

Belgrade University The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-ba ...

Elinor Armer Elinor Armer (born October 6, 1939) is an American pianist, music educator and composer. Biography Elinor Armer was born in Oakland, California but at the age of 2 months moved to Davis, California with her family where she would spend most of ...

at the

San Francisco Conservatory of Music The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is a private music conservatory in San Francisco, California. As of 2021, it had 480 students. History The San Francisco Conservatory of Music was founded in 1917 by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgh ...

, and Ivana Loudová at the Prague Academy of Music. She obtained her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

where she studied with

Evan Chambers Evan Chambers (born 1963, in Alexandria, Louisiana) is a composer, traditional Irish fiddler, and Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan. He received a Doctorate in music composition from the University of Michigan. His teachers in ...

and

Michael Daugherty Michael Kevin Daugherty (born April 28, 1954) is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. He is influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism. Daugherty's notable works include his Superman comic book-inspired ''Metropolis Sym ...

. She has had residences at the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

Bellagio Center,

Tanglewood Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the T ...

, New York's New Dramatists,

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...

, and American Opera Projects among others. She has received Awards or Fellowships from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

Charles Ives Fellowship, Meet the Composer, Highsmith Composition Competition, Vienna Modern Masters, Serbian Fond for an Open Society,

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

Awards, and Douglas Moore Fellowship. Her early string quartet ''Pannonia Boundless'', evoking eastern European sonorities, has been recorded by the

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...

on their album ''Kronos Caravan'' (1999) and published by

Boosey & Hawkes Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and woodwind musical instruments. Formed in 1930 throu ...

(2007). The Kronos Quartet, with clarinetist David Krakauer, premiered her 40-minute "Babylon, Our Own", commissioned for the 10th anniversary season of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, in September 2011. In her more developed orchestral work ''Orbits'' (2002), Vrebalov uses overlapping densities of sonorities and rhythmic proportions such as the

Fibonacci series In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted , form a sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start the sequence from ...

to portray her idiosyncratic post-modern conception of

musica universalis The ''musica universalis'' (literally universal music), also called music of the spheres or harmony of the spheres, is a philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies – the Sun, Moon, and planets – as a f ...

. Her music for the ballet ''The Widow's Broom'' (2004) based on

Chris Van Allsburg Chris Van Allsburg (born June 18, 1949) is an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He has won two Caldecott Medals for U.S. picture book illustration, for ''Jumanji'' (1981) and ''The Polar Express'' (1985), both of which he al ...

's book has been performed on Halloween by the Festival Ballet Providence. She has received commissions from

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

(co-commission), Barlow Endowment, Festival Ballet Providence,

Merkin Concert Hall Merkin Hall is a 449-seat concert hall in Manhattan, New York City. The hall, named in honor of Hermann and Ursula Merkin, is part of the Kaufman Music Center, a complex that includes the Lucy Moses School, a community arts school, and the Spec ...

Zoom Series. Vrebalov is also a co-founder of South Oxford Six, a composers' collective in New York. In October 2011 her 2-act opera ''Mileva'', on a libretto by

Vida Ognjenović Vida Ognjenović ( sr-cyr, Вида Огњеновић, ; born 14 August 1941) is a Serbian theater director, playwright, writer, drama professor and diplomat. Biography Ognjenović completed primary education in the town of Vrbas, before going ...

based on her play, was premiered at the Serbian National Theater in Novi Sad, with a repeat performance at the Sava Center in Belgrade as part of the Belgrade Music Festival (BEMUS). The opera was commissioned to mark the 150th anniversary of the Serbian National Theater. The scenario centers on the character of

Mileva Marić Mileva Marić ( sr-cyr, Милева Марић; 19 December 1875 – 4 August 1948), sometimes called Mileva Marić-Einstein ( sr-cyr, Милева Марић-Ајнштајн, Mileva Marić-Ajnštajn), was a Serbian physicist and mathematicia ...

, the Serbian physicist and mathematician who was

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

's first wife.

References

Ira Prodanov, "Gudački kvartet br. 1 Aleksandre Vrebalov", ''Novi zvuk: Internacionalni casopis za muziku'' 9 (1997) 55-58
*Ira Prodanov, "String quartet no. 1 by Aleksandra Vrebalov", ''New sound: International journal for music'' 9 (1997) 55-58 *Ira Prodanov, "Samples in the work of A. Vrebalov", ''Exclusivity and coexistence: The 5th international symposium Folklore-Music-Work of art'' (Beograd: Fakultet muzičke umetnosti, 1997),157-164
Tatjana Marković, "O/u orbitama Aleksandre Vrebalov", ''Novi zvuk: Internacionalni časopis za muziku'' 27 (2006) 61-64Tatjana Marković, "On/in the Orbits of Aleksandra Vrebalov", ''New sound: International journal for music'' 27 (2006) 61-64
*Tatjana Marković, "Vrebalov, Aleksandra", ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', 2nd ed., ed. by

Ludwig Finscher Ludwig Finscher (14 March 193030 June 2020) was a German musicologist. He was a professor of music history at the University of Heidelberg from 1981 to 1995 and editor of the encyclopedia ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. He is respecte ...

(Kassel:

Bärenreiter Bärenreiter (Bärenreiter-Verlag) is a German classical music publishing house based in Kassel. The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle (1903–1975) in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still has its headquarters; it also ...

; Stuttgart: Metzler, 2008), 1053-1054 *Adrian Kranjčević & Mirko Sebić, "Aleksandra Vrebalov: Stanice na putu", ''Nova misao: Časopis za savremenu kulturu Vojvodine'' 1 (July 2009), 26-36
Carnegie Hall Commissions page on Vrebalov, accessed 11 February 2010

External links

Official website of Aleksandra Vrebalov
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20100704154704/http://kronosquartet.org/records/indiv.php?id=111 Kronos Quartetbr>Dnevnik Interview
(Serbian)

(Serbian; opera "Mileva") {{DEFAULTSORT:Vrebalov, Aleksandra 1970 births Living people Serbian composers 21st-century classical composers Musicians from Novi Sad San Francisco Conservatory of Music alumni University of Belgrade alumni University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance alumni Women classical composers 21st-century American musicians Serbian emigrants to the United States 21st-century American women musicians 21st-century women composers