Djordjević, Milica

Born in 1984 in Belgrade, she graduated in composition from the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, where she also completed studies in sound and music recording and production as well as specialist training in electronic music. She completed a postgraduate specialist course in composition at Conservatoire National de Région in Strasbourg in the class of Ivan Fedele (2007–9), graduating with honours. She then continued her professional development in Paris, where she enrolled in a composition and computer music course at IRCAM (2009–10), and in Berlin at the Hanns Eisler High School of Music, where she studied with Hanspeter Kyburz. She currently lives and works in Berlin. 

She has attended various composition masterclasses, courses and festivals, including Young Artist Festival (Germany, 2003), International Bartók Seminar and Festival (Hungary, 2004), International Summer Academy Prague–Vienna–Budapest (2005), International Young Composers Meeting and International Gaudeamus Music Week (2006), Acanthes (2007, 2009 and 2010), Workshop for Contemporary String Quartet Music in Blonay (2008), International Review of Composers in Belgrade (2006, 2008 and 2010), KoMA’ Festival in Belgrade (2004, 2005, 2006 and 2010), Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt (2008), Ars Musica in Brussels (2009), Impuls Academy in Graz (2011), Tzlil Meudcan Festival in Tel Aviv (2011), and Akademie für Neue Musik in Munich (2012). 

She has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships including the 1st Prize at the ISA05 (2005), 3rd Prize at the young Composers Meeting in Apeldoorn (2006), final of the StaubachPreis competition in Darmstadt (2008), City of Strasbourg Prize (2008), Serbian Government talent scholarship (2008), selection for the ISCM World New Music Days (2011), Nikola Tesla Award (2012), Alfred Toepfer Scholarship (2012), 1st Prize at the 8th TICF (2012), 8th Berlin-Rheinsberger Composition Prize (2013), 1st Prize at the Lucerne Festival composition competition (2013), 1st Prize at Munich Chamber Orchestra’s Musica Femina competition (2013–14), Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music of the Forberd–Schneider Foundation (2015), Ernst von Siemens Composition Prize (2016), Staubach Fellowship (2016), and nomination for the April Prize of the City of Belgrade. She has worked with ensembles and performers such as Arditti Quartet, Musikfabrik, ensemble recherche, BR Symphony Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lorraine, J.A.C.K. Quartet, Neue Vocalsolisten, Ensemble Alternance, Ensemble L’Arsenale, Teodoro Anzellotti, Alexander Liebreich, Peter Rundel, Luca Pfaff, Jean Deroyer, Sylvio Gualda, and Cerys Jones. Her first CD was published by WERGO as part of the Contemporary Music Edition the German Music Council and won the German Critics’ Prize (Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik) for 2017. Her music has been performed and broadcast in Europe, the USA and Asia. 

Selected works: The Fire y in a Jar I–II for orchestra (2007–8), The Journey of a Weather-Beaten Skeleton for orchestra (2009), ZID for soprano, tenor, baritone and percussion (2009), The Death of the StarKnower, petrified echoes of an epitaph in a kicked crystal of time I–II for string quartet (2009), FAIL for cello and electronics (2010), do you know how to bark? for double bass (2010), one less horror for your mother for soprano, bass clarinet, accordion, violin, viola and cello (2011), How to Evade for oboe and violin (2011), ... and the air was sticky for violin, cello and double bass (2012), ZAPIS for 12 percussionists (2013), Phosphorescence for horn, trumpet and bass trombone (2014), Sky Limited for string orchestra (2014), Kakva mi je to pa igra for voice and percussion (2014), Rdja for chamber orchestra (2015), I ti hoćeš se volimo for soprano and ensemble (2015), würde man denken: Sterne for accordion (2015), Quicksilver for orchestra (2016), Hladan ti dah do grla for mezzo-soprano and ensemble (2016), Indigo for double string quartet (2017), Pomen II for viola (2018).