Top-notch music, from great Russian classics, through lyrics Desanke Maksimović, to contemporary compositions, with different emotions and feelings, and undoubtedly a real cultural and artistic spectacle, awaits the audience in Berane today.
After its official opening yesterday, the second day of the fourth edition of the Arts Festival at the Cultural Center in Berane will feature a concert of opera music, which will be performed tonight by the soprano Andjela (Jovićević) Brajović accompanied by a pianist Vesna Damljanovic, at 20:XNUMX p.m.
"Visitors can expect to experience various emotions through our music, or rather through the correlation of me and Vesna Damljanović at the piano. These will be compositions that are energetically very intense, charged with the most beautiful emotions, joy, happiness, lyricism, but also the most dramatic ones. The audience will experience all those beautiful feelings of romance and pleasure, and we will probably manage to evoke others as well, and probably even bring tears to some people's eyes, as music can, because every living being, every person, is emotional, if they have an open heart for everything around them. We promise that tonight everyone in the audience will have their hearts truly filled, that they will enjoy and rest their souls through music, acting, interpretation. That is why I am convinced that our concert is worth your attention, and I invite everyone to visit it," Brajović said in an interview with Vijesti.
Announcing the repertoire, he reveals that it is quite diverse, and that it has been adapted to individuals with a wide variety of profiles.
"We chose the repertoire so that it could awaken the ears of those who are musicians and artists by profession, those who are just starting to love opera, but also those who do not know it at all. We made sure that everything was listenable, cultural and demanding, and of high quality and emotional. The repertoire will include domestic authors, everything will be interesting in its own way. We wanted to present the composer Valentina Dutina, a 21st century composer, a professor at the Academy in East Sarajevo, who wrote a wonderful cycle 'Livska oase' which she dedicated to me, so we wanted to perform it so that people could see that even in the 21st century, top-notch, listenable classical music is being produced that is receptive, that is also interesting because it was written on texts by Desanka Maksimović, which I am sure will be additionally interesting to the audience. We have also included Russian in the repertoire, Čajkovskog, Rahmanjinova, "Then we added a couple of arias to the program, so there will be a part of Verdi's "La Traviata", as well as an aria from the opera "Boheme", and all in all, it will be very interesting, colorful, for everyone's ears and soul," announces the soprano.
Brajović points out that both Damljanović and she are grateful and happy to be performing at the festival, and that they truly made an effort to make the concert as good as possible.
"Vesna came from Užice so that we could have rehearsals that have been going on for days. At the same time, we are both teachers at school, we both have families and children, and therefore numerous obligations, but we also have a strong energetic, musical, artistic connection that has lasted for years, ever since she was my professor at the university, after which we became friends and started performing together and implementing various projects. So we are extremely looking forward to this tonight and we can't wait for the audience to feel it for themselves and to take everyone present to another world," she says.
Brajović emphasizes that they carefully approached the conception of the repertoire, and explains why.
"Because in Berane and generally in the north, although in all of Montenegro, it is still necessary to work on educating people more in the field of opera music, which is still in its infancy. In Berane, there has been a solo singing course at the Music School where I teach for six years, and that is precisely why we chose more local authors so that people could experience opera through their native language, better understand the compositions and text, and connect the text with the music, and then further understand the way of working and of course the function of the voice and how the voice approaches the text through opera music... That is why we tried to choose very carefully the most understandable text, so that people would feel welcome, and what we perform would be familiar," she says.
The repertoire is also challenging and demanding, especially since it is a form of concert performance of opera music.
"When it comes to solo songs, they are solo compositions, or numbers from various cycles or individual ones, and that is easy to perform, because that is mostly concert music. On the other hand, when it comes to arias or opera roles from an opera, it can be very difficult, because the singer does not have everything that a particular role entails at that moment, from costumes, stage and partner, but through his expression and acting he has to convey to the audience what it is about. That is why our acting power must be extremely strong, so that through interpretation, movements, mimicry, in addition to voice and words, we manage to show the audience what it is about so that they understand, accept and feel it. Singing arias is practiced at concerts, but generally it is not the same feeling as when you watch the specific opera from which the aria was chosen," explains the soprano.
However, there is no shortage of motivation to overcome all challenges and organize the most beautiful evening possible for the audience in their city.
"We are extremely happy that Berane has its own classical music festival, thanks to its founder Find Dabetic whose wonderful idea it is. This could mean both for some musicians from abroad, those in the diaspora, and for us in Montenegro and Berane, that all of them and we have the opportunity to present ourselves in the north of Montenegro, specifically in this city. This is especially important for our students at school, so that they can see that events in the field of classical music are taking place in their city, and so that they have the opportunity to visit concerts and see for themselves that this is a wonderful industry and a wonderful calling that is really worthwhile. This sends a message to everyone who decides to continue to engage in music, that there is a place for everyone in this sphere, and that you just need to work, try, improve and love your calling. For all this, I am extremely happy that something like this exists in this city", emphasizes Brajović.
Her fellow citizen, Nađa Dabetić, also a musician and double bass player, started the Arts Festival. Both teach at a music school and pass on their knowledge and experience to younger people. However, cultural and artistic events like these are of particular importance, both for young musicians and for the city, says Brajović.
After tonight's concert, the festival continues tomorrow evening when the exhibition of paintings "Fragments of the Soul" by the young artist will open at 20 p.m. in the "Nikola and Uglješa Popović" gallery. Emilia Spalevic. Concert by the piano duo “Emerald”, consisting of Nina Dragicevic i Danilo Djokic, will be held on Wednesday at 20 p.m., in the Great Hall of the Cultural Center, while the guests of the concert are Ajla Adrovic i Vuk Vukicevic, piano duo of the School for Primary Music Education Berane.
"We chose the repertoire so that it could awaken the ears of those who are musicians and artists by profession, those who are just starting to love opera, but also those who do not know it at all. We made sure that everything was listenable, cultural and demanding, and of high quality and emotional," says Brajović
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