Biography: Isidora Žebeljan

ISIDORA ŽEBELJAN was born in Belgrade in 1967. She finished her regular and postgraduate studies at the Department of Composition and Orchestration of the Belgrade Music Academy, in the class of Prof. Vlastimir Trajkovic. While she was still a student, she joined a group of young prominent composers known as The Magnificent Seven. This group took an innovative and non-conventional approach to presenting their music and caused a genuine stir among loves of contemporary music.

From 1993 - 2002, Isidora Žebeljan was an Assistant Professor of Composition at the Department of Composition and Orchestration at the Belgrade Music Academy. Since 2002 she has held a position as a Professor of Composition at the same department.

Isidora has received much praise for her music and has won several significant national awards, including the prize at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in 1993 as well as the Vasilije Mokranjac Foundation Award in 2001. She was also awarded a fellowship by the Civitella Ranieri Foundation.

Her compositions have been performed throughout the former Yugoslavia to major acclaim, and also in Great Britain, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Austria and the United States.

Isidora's first opera Zora D was short-listed for the presentations of Work in Progress of the Genesis Opera Project 1 in London 2002. This work was then commissioned by the Genesis Foundation. Its premiere was in June 2003, in Amsterdam, in a co-production created for both the Opera Studio Nederland and the Wiener Kammeroper. David Pountney and Nicola Raab were its directors. Other forces included soloists of the Opera Studio Nederland and the Nieuw Ensemble Orchestra and the conductor was Winfried Maczewski. In October and November 2003 Zora D. was performed 12 times at the Wiener Kammeroper in a double bill with Sir Peter Maxwell Davis's Mr. Emmet Takes a Walk. The work was given with the same soloists as in Amsterdam and with the Wiener Kammeroper orchestra, conducted by Daniel Hoyem-Cavazza.

In August 2003, Isidora got the commission from the Genesis Foundation to write a chamber music piece for the opening of Bill Viola's exhibition, The Passions, at the National Gallery in London. The first performance of the composition Song of a Traveller in the Night, scored for Clarinet and String Quartet, took place on 22 October 2003. The performers were musicians of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. After this piece, Isidora was invited by the Genesis Foundation to extend the piece for The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields by developing her short chamber music homage to Bill Viola entitled Minstrel's Dance. It was premiered at the Wigmore Hall, London on the 3rd February 2005 by the Academy of Saint Martins in the Fields. Isidora Žebeljan was also commissioned to write a piece for the Venice Biennale in 2004, The Horses of Saint Mark, an illumination for symphony orchestra, published by Ricordi Milano. Isidora is currently working on her second opera.

Isidora Žebeljan is one of the most outstanding Serbian contemporary composers of music for theatre and film. So far, she has composed music for almost 30 theatre productions for all the prominent Yugoslav theatres. As a result of this success in theatrical work, Isidora is all round one of the most productive and sought after composers in her country.

Ms Žebeljan has been honored twice by the Sterija's Award, the highest Yugoslav annual prize for theatre. The Yustat Biennale of Theatre Design has also been awarded to her four times as Best Composer of Theatre Music. She has worked on several film scores, including the orchestration of Goran Bregovic's music from The Time of the Gypsies, the films Arizona Dream, Underground (all directed by E. Kusturica), "Queen Margot" (directed by P. Chereau) and "The Serpent's Kiss" (directed by P. Rousselot).

Selected list of musical works of Isidora Žebeljan:

• Deserted Village, an elegy for String Orchestra
• Pep It Up, a fantasy for Soprano Voice, Piano, Percussion and String Quintet,
• A Yawl on the Danube, a scene for Soprano, Piano, Percussion and String Quartet,
• The Scenes of Picars - sinfonia in tre movimenti, for symphony orchestra,
• Rukoveti, Five Songs for Soprano Voice and Orchestra.
• Zora D., An Opera in one Act
• Song of a Traveller in the Night, A Tribute to Bill Viola, for Clarinet and String Quartet
• Minstrel's Dance, for chamber orchestra within three movements
• The Horses of Saint Mark, an illumination for symphony orchestra