Festivals
BASSOMANIA, Double Bass Festival – Concerts, Masterclasses, and Workshops
The International Festival “Bassomania” is one of the longest-running events organized by the Faculty of Music Arts. Despite only sporadic financial support, it has managed to continue and grow far beyond its original idea of bringing together young double bass players, becoming a renowned event that encompasses a variety of activities. It not only promotes double bass performance but also artistic music and art in general. The broader goal of “Bassomania” is to develop and expand the audience for classical music concerts by educating young generations. Free entry to the concerts makes them available to all layers of society.
The quality of the international festival has been recognized by the professional public, and it has been awarded three times:
By the Muzika klasika magazine in 2021, for:
– Best Monograph (“30th Bassomania” produced by the festival and published by the Publishing Center of FoM). The monograph is a bilingual, representative edition with luxurious graphic design).
– Best Festival (for its overall societal importance and contribution to cultural development, the highest level of domestic creation and performance, popularization of artistic music, and promotion of young artists).
– UMUS Award in 2022 for Best Concert – Stevan Jovanović, recital within Bassomania.
The festival has grown from a local event into one of the most renowned international double bass festivals, featuring top world-class soloists. It is the only double bass festival of international character in the entire region and beyond. Due to its diversity, innovative concept, rich program, and prominent guest professors from around the world, “Bassomania” attracts an increasing number of active participants from among students, pupils, and double bass professors (over 50 students and pupils, over 20 professors). It also gathers a steadily growing audience, with at least 100, and up to 1000 people attending.
In addition to its educational role, “Bassomania” is significant for its contribution to creating a new audience, including all social groups in cultural events, and promoting gender equality and human rights. The focus of the international festival is also on popularizing and stimulating domestic creation and performance. Numerous world premieres of works by Serbian composers have taken place at “Bassomania”. Compositions by Zoran Erić, Ivan Brkljačić, Tatjana Milošević, Branka Popović, Konstantin Ivanović, Ognjen Bogdanović, Katarina Mićković, Isidora Žebeljan, Ivana Stefanović, Dragana Jovanović, Aleksandar Sedlar, and others have been commissioned, performed, and recorded.
KoMa – Concerts of young composers
KoMA – Concerts of Young Composers is a project that promotes the artistic music of the youngest generation of composers – students of composition. KoMA is the only festival where young composers have the opportunity to present their latest works and hear them performed live.
The festival was launched in 2004, initiated by composition students, with the aim of creating a platform for the promotion of young artists in the domestic scene, while also providing support for international promotion through professional performances and audio recordings of the compositions performed at the festival. The significant impact of the KoMA festival is evident in the fact that numerous Serbian names in contemporary music composition had their first public performances at this festival, including composers such as Milica Đorđević, Marko Nikodijević, Miša Cvijić, Teodora Stepančić, Jug Marković, and many others. Thus, the experiences provided by the KoMA festival and the importance it holds in the development of their future artistic careers go far beyond the scope of student practice and the Faculty of Music Arts in Belgrade. Thanks to the support of the Faculty, the festival will celebrate its 21st year in 2025.
The program of the KoMA’21 festival, held across four concerts at the Kolarac Endowment, the Central Military Club, and the Slavenki Legacy, featured 23 new works by Composition students. The compositions were intended for chamber orchestra, string orchestra, larger and smaller chamber ensembles, as well as solo acoustic and electric instruments. A total of 89 musicians performed on stage, including the best students from the Faculty of Music Arts in Belgrade, alongside renowned artistic ensembles such as BeOM – the Belgrade Youth Orchestra and the Mixed Chamber Choir of FoM students.
Since 2022, the KoMA festival has proudly launched its official website and profiles on social media (Instagram and Facebook accounts: @koma.festival), which have further contributed to promoting the KoMA Festival and all its participants. Starting in 2024, the KoMA festival also released a mobile app, KoMA Music Library, which allows users to carry playlists of all previous KoMA festival editions in their pockets. The app is free and can be downloaded from the festival’s website.
For the past 21 years, this project has provided the youngest generation of composers with the opportunity to see their compositions performed in concert settings, after passing an examination review, and to confront all the practical challenges that come with preparing public performances. Of particular significance is the fact that some of the young composers, while performing their own works, actively participated in the process of executing their compositions. All of this, along with the communication and collaboration with performers, is an important element in the education and maturation of young creators into professional artists.