Young Musicology Belgrade 2020 - Tradition and Youth - Concert

Young Musicology Belgrade 2020
Friday 25, Concert
Tradition and Youth: Musical Heritage from Serbia

The concert of traditional music represents a collage of the music cultural heritage of Serbia: various examples of vocal, vocal-instrumental and instrumental practice will be presented, both those of rural origin and those nurtured in the urban environment.
The vocal forms that will be performed represent two-part and three-part singing, and there are examples that belong both to the older and the newer rural music layers. Singing is usually differentiated by the gender of performers, and rarely songs can be performed by a mixed ensemble. Examples of the older rural singing are genre-specific and they appear in heterophonic-drone and drone textures and they are characterized by prevailing interval of the second as a vertical sonority. The songs of the newer rural layer have homophone texture, with prevailing vertical sonority of the third and a cadence in the fifth or major triad. The example of old urban music (starogradska) reflects Western European influences in terms of melody and harmonization, and such examples are most often performed in kafana (tavern).
In contemporary traditional music nurturing, young musicians often reach for more practical or accessible solutions, so it happens that they play instruments that are similar to Serbian, but in construction belong to other traditions. This was the case with solo singing accompanied by a half-transverse flute called kaval. It is one of the examples that will present the vocal-instrumental form, while the other one is solo singing accompanied with the single-string fiddle called the gusle Solo singing accompanied called kaval, typical for the area of Kosovo, is one of the examples that will present the vocal-instrumental form, while the other one is solo singing accompanied with the single-string fiddle called the gusle – the only type of musical practice from Serbia that is inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Soloist instrumental practice will be presented by different types of aerophone instruments, and one of them belongs to the tradition of Vlach ethnic minority. These are: long flute duduk or svirala, cevara and two types of bagpipes – South Moravian two-voiced and Svrljig three-voiced. Of particular interest is the technique of playing on long flute enriched with specific "voice from the throat".
The concert features young performers from different parts of Serbia, each of whom will present their own or a musical dialect close to them. One example will be presented by a generationally mixed group, which will show how young people are directly involved in the process of passing on the tradition "from generation to generation".
It should be emphasized that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the performers recorded their performances by themselves especially for this occasion, each according to their technical capabilities, for which we are very grateful. Examples are grouped by geographical affiliation in two collage blocks.

1. "Banović Strahinja", singing accompanied with the gusle
Srđan Avdalović
2. "The bell rings, the shepherd leads the sheep" (north Serbia)
Female singing group of Academic Society for Preservation of Music "Gusle", Kikinda
3. "Mnuojlja" song and "šupita" dance (eastern Serbia)
Stefan Radovanović, Cultural Center of the City of Bor
4. "Mother, my head hurts" (eastern Serbia)
Female singing group of the City Folk Dance and Song Ensemble, Požarevac
5. "Oh, I'm picking grapes" song and "rumenka" dance (eastern Serbia)
Filip Bogdanović
6. "The bridegroom’s mother asked us" (central Serbia)
Original singing group "Crnućanka", Gornji Milanovac
7. "Girl Jela, your heart ached" song and "bullwhacker’s round dance" (western Serbia)
Dalibor and Ivana Todorović
8. "The wind is blowing from Previja" (western Serbia)
Male singing group of the Cultural and Artistic Society "Sevojno", Užice
9. "Sister called her brother for dinner" (southern Serbia)
Nebojša Brdarić, Nevena Čiplak, Cultural and Artistic Society "Kopaonik", Leposavić
10. "If the tart cherry were a cherry" (north Serbia)
Female singing group of Academic Society for Preservation of Music "Gusle", Kikinda
11. "Traveller’s" improvisation and "čačak round dance from Jablanica" (eastern Serbia)
Filip Bogdanović
12. "Small stones next to one another"(eastern Serbia)
Female singing group of the City Folk Dance and Song Ensemble, Požarevac
13. "Oh, Dimitrije, my son" song and "pedestrian’s play" (eastern Serbia)
Borisav Miljković
14. "The poplar tree has grown" (central Serbia)
Original singing group "Crnućanka", Gornji Milanovac
15. "Source water has sprung" (central Serbia)
Original singing group "Crnućanka", Gornji Milanovac
16. "Oh, Morava, muddy river" (western Serbia)
Male singing group of the Cultural and Artistic Society "Abrašević", Kraljevo
17. "The sky is so clear", starogradska
Quartet "Luča"