She is the more appealing face of Serbia, a highly sought-after composer who creates by invitation for Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Academy of Music, Beijing’s Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra etc. The author of more than 100 pieces of music, she is recognised worldwide for her operas, ballets, symphonic and chamber orchestra music. A full-time professor of the Academy of Arts Novi Sad, she is set to become a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts this autumn
Music has been her choice since as far back as she can remember, and she never had a desire to do anything else. She was only a flamenco dancer once, in a dream. Devoted, talented, capable and extremely successful, Aleksandra Vrebalov (1970) spent 30 years honing her talents and working in America. Her life unfolds generally between Novi Sad and New York. Born in Novi Sad, she earned her master’s degree and doctorate in America, then lectured in Michigan and New York. Hundreds of performances of her works are planned in numerous Serbian, European and American cities over the course of this year alone, from New York’s Lincoln Center to San Francisco, Maastricht, Brussels, Belgrade, Novi Sad and elsewhere.
Odes to her works have been published in prestigious world magazines. The New York Times critic wrote after one Carnegie Hall concert: ““It’s a testament to Ms. Vrebalov’s skill that the result is a unified and purposeful work (Babylon, Our Own), combining depth and a great deal of surface polish, beauty and even fun. Her musical language, inflected with Balkan and klezmer idioms, is vivid and free of clichés. Its relationship to the music and poetry of the past — recorded, inherited, memorized — is refreshingly unneurotic.”
This summer saw CorD’s interlocutor selected at the Department of Arts to become a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, SANU. She thus follows in the footsteps of Ljubica Marić, which were continued by Isidora Žebeljan. There is good reason why those who are greats of their work desire the status of academics, but this composer dreamt of something else.
“At that moment, in 2019, when I was invited to present my work at the Novi Sad branch of SANU, I wasn’t personally acquainted with almost a single person at that branch. The reason for that lack of personal contact is that my creative journey has mostly unfolded abroad; I was educated and spent almost 30 years living in the U.S. That’s why it’s a great honour that I’m on the list of selected candidates for election this autumn. I can’t say that I wished for this recognition, it somehow wasn’t in my line of sight – my attention has always been on challenges in the narrowest creative sense; I wished to have my works performed at Carnegie Hall, for example, or to experience hearing them performed by top musicians using historic, legendary instruments – and that has actually happened for me on many occasions. My approach to work and creativity is focused on the work itself, more than on its standing and external evaluation, and I believe that recognition comes naturally when work gains momentum over time and with dedication. I am, of course, impressed by the SANU candidacy and see it as a great honour and privilege – for me to create at a new level, to contribute to the wider community and our country’s culture.”
Aleksandra’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents all lived in Banat and Bačka, from Melenci via Sombor to Mohač: the Vrebalovs, Kneževićs, Gucunjas, Djurićs, Jelačićs, Ferenčevićs, Stojkovs, Maleševićs. Her father insisted that she know even the maiden names of her great-grandmothers.
Creativity is the only topic when the budget to create something is zero, but also when it’s huge
“I was taught that posterity and care for future generations are the very meaning of existence; that freedom and truth are inseparable categories. ‘Patience = saved’ was a favourite sentence of my great-grandmother Julka, which was passed on to us children by our father. Being neat and tidy, expressing ourselves and moving slowly, despite our temperaments and quick minds, being loyal, think things through, but act from the heart and gut – these are some of the messages that remain. None of my ancestors are with us any longer. My family today is my four sisters and brother from my father’s three marriages: my sisters Vera and Marija with their husbands and children; Simona, Zorka, Boško and their mother, my stepmother, Valentina. I love it when we’re together. We all look alike and have a similar sense of humour.”
Aleksanda took long walks from an early age. During the ‘90s, famous writer Aleksandar Tišma and the city’s most famous walker, publisher and writer Miroslav Mandić, would walk intensively together in Novi Sad. And our interviewee was encountered them near Miletić Square, when Mandić introduced her to Tišma:
“It turned out that I had Tišma’s The Book of Blam in my bag – I showed it to them. That was a magical encounter that had been somehow destined to occur due to that book in my bag. We would later meet regularly at the Salon of our mutual friend Dušan Mijić, where I was the youngest and sometimes the only woman at the gathering – we would side by side and engage in sporadic conversation. He would do so because he wasn’t among the most talkative of people, while I kept quiet because everyone else had more to say. He knew that I loved his work and was interested in what I was creating. When I wrote Pannonia Boundless, which had been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet in 1997, he brought me some of his vinyl records of Romanian Romani music to help me prepare for the work.
I once asked him where he felt he most belonged of all the places where he’d resided. He said – well, here (Novi Sad). I was then attracted by the wider world; my music was already being performed abroad and our milieu seemed too small and disinterested in art, I didn’t understand him. The place where we spend our youth, where we experience the strongest emotions, is the place where we feel true to ourselves the most.
Milan Konjović and Tišma were two greats around whom I matured, and I heard that from both of them. They returned to their (small) towns, having accurately and critically evaluated the social juncture, but by maintaining their focus on their own work. They sometimes looked distant to me, but I later realised that that was the only way to save space for creativity. They both had inner discipline and calmness, but radiating from them was eros, the instinct for self-sustainability, without which there can be no creation of either biological life or art.”
The recently departed composer Zoran Erić (1950-1024) had been Aleksandra’s mentor during her composition master’s studies in Belgrade during the early ‘90s, until she transferred to the Conservatory in San Francisco, where she earned her master’s.
“He would spend long hours with us students in the studio, after which we would go to Slavija Square late at night for burgers. He didn’t differentiate between dedication to his own work and to ours. He encouraged me to create schematic representations of musical forms, which has today been built into a process that’s typical of my work. His music reflects precisely the personality that he was: rich, emotional and unforgettable. He came to Novi Sad for us to have lunch together a few months prior to his death. That was our last meeting. We discussed professorship and the importance of maintaining the highest academic standards even when the system is collapsing around us. I never had a more dedicated mentor.”
She arrived in San Francisco in the August of 1995 and shared a house in the Sunset District, located next to the Pacific, with three students. Everything was new to her – from Santa Claus strolling through the sunny city decorated with palm trees and the smell of the ocean in the middle of winter, to unexpected conversations with total strangers. She learnt that this was part of American openness and curiosity, which she fell in love with and adopted.
“We worked with a lot of enthusiasm at the Conservatory, addressed the mentors informally, snatched each other’s practice rooms, and because we’d all came from different places, we were each other’s pillars of support. Both San Francisco and New York, where I moved to in the year 2000, were flourishing cities from an artist’s point of view: money was distributed more evenly, the IT sector wasn’t yet so developed, artists were able to pay rent in the city, political divisions weren’t as drastic as they are today, emigrants could find work more easily. Life was blossoming, just as we would imagine the late 20th century in the West. In comparison to the Balkans, America was a country of abundance, freedom of expression and movement, orderly institutions and systems: from education to public transport, to the financing of art from private funds and, to a lesser extent, state funds.
I was taught that progeny and care for future generations are the very meaning of existence
“Then September 11th happened, followed by the financial crisis of 2006 – the attitude towards immigrants changed, and the budget deficit of large art institutions led to them transforming or disappearing. In an attempt to attract audiences and remain relevant, they focused on art with an agenda and commercial approaches – for example, film directors directing operas, pop musicians composing for symphony orchestras, famous fashion designers creating stage costumes for plays. The scene is still exciting, bubbling with ideas and openness, political views, innovations, although over the past ten years, and particularly after the pandemic, I miss the idea of art for art’s sake.”
She has visited China on multiple occasions over the past six or seven years. During those stays, composers from Eastern Europe were familiarised with traditional Chinese instruments, in order to be able to write new pieces for them, though in a Western style.
“That is a considered, systematic approach to cultural policy that’s impressive, as art is a state project. I travel lots and work with artists and institutions from Asia, Europe and North America. Every milieu in which I’ve worked supports creativity to the extent that is harmonised with social currents; if it isn’t supported by the system, there are always micro milieus functioning independent of the dominant scene. The forms that I deal with have support from completely different sources.
“The support of art takes place at several levels – take the example of freedom, mass scale and ideology. I had the greatest artistic freedom under circumstances of the smallest or extremely large resources, both locally and globally, because creativity is the only topic when the budget to create something is zero, but also when it’s huge. Art at the level of mass appeal is directed towards the spectacular, materially secured, always systemically supported, but with a controlled, predefined result, which in its initial setting limits the exploratory, undefinable dimension of art. The ideological level, where support for artistic content is defined in accordance with a social/political agenda, is a characteristic of all milieus, from the most liberal to the most conservative. It (support) depends on social currents and the dominant ideology, sometimes directly, sometimes subtly, limiting non-likeminded artists in terms of securing funding from funds, a media presence and other resources.”
In the field of composition in Western Europe, as well as in America, care is today taken to ensure that artistic programmes are filled with works by composers of various identities.
“Established institutions, prestigious awards and commissions are adjusted to even out various historical imbalances in presenting the full spectrum of the human experience.
The positive side of these efforts is that we’re witnessing an eruption of personal and artistic narratives that are different, and thus expand the collective experience of ‘the other’. Maybe the collateral damage of this process is that the craftsmanship side of art, which relies on rigorous discipline and learning from the mastery of our predecessors, becomes secondary. Art is continuity, and ability comes from being familiar with the creator’s heritage. But, as it (heritage) is connected to old power structures, it is considered antiquated and undesirable, like the rejected power structures themselves.”
In 2011, to mark celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, her opera ‘Mileva’ was performed. This piece is about Vojvodina native Mileva Marić, scientist and wife of Albert Einstein, whose life proved inspirational for Aleksandra, because the idea of ‘The Other’, as defined by Edward Said, is obvious in her fate.
“She had a physical disability, was an immigrant, married into a different religion, was the only woman studying in her class in Switzerland and lived with the consequences of all that ‘otherness’. Her fate, in the context of marrying the greatest scientist of the 20th century, could have been one of the greatest and most beautiful stories of the last century: two young scientists creating together, having a family, pushing the boundaries of science, overcoming taboos on various fronts. But the reality was different – Mileva’s fate was tragic, operatic, so to speak – she was left without health, a family, a title and status in science; without love.
Milan Konjović and Tišma were two greats around whom I matured
“Apart from Mileva’s life, I was also inspired by our collective attitude towards her and Einstein. There were initiatives to title the opera Mileva Einstein, instead of just Mileva, due to the opinion that the opera would have higher attendances if we added her surname to the title. This request was layered with multiple ways to read and understand our relationship towards power and authority, which, one one hand we feel like criticizing, while simultaneously taking advantage of it.”
Aleksandra was connected to prematurely departed composer Isidora Žebeljan (1967-2020) by her Vojvodina origins, music, mutual friends who they met as children through their parents, Isidora’s husband Borislav Čičovački, who is one of Aleksandra’s dearest friends from her time as a student at the Novi Sad Academy.
“I share my Sombor roots with Borislav, and childhood walks around Sombor’s Great Cemetery, where both of our mothers are buried. I departed for America immediately after completing my studies, while Borislav moved to the Netherlands. Years passed, decades to be precise.
Isidora and I created untiringly. We met up very rarely and I’m sorry that we never actually got to know each other well. I’m left with memories of short, cheerful meetings with our mutual friend Nenad Stojacic. She was supposed to come to New York six or seven years ago – I was looking forward to meeting her and the possibility of hosting her there. That didn’t happen, and nor did my desire for us to get better acquainted, to meet up and talk sometime in the future – about the operas we wrote, about creativity generally, about life. I was delighted to see her at the premiere of my opera ‘Mileva’ at the Serbian National Theatre in 2011. My late father took a photo of us – he captured a moment of some humour, lightness and closeness between us. We come from the same source, like two rivers or two plants from the same soil. I would like for her to be here, creating and living, as life would be greater and richer.”
This year is also a very significant one in Aleksandra’s life due to her having received the biggest international award for her work: the annual Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.