Ivan Brkljačić (1977, Serbia) graduated in composition from the Belgrade Faculty of Music (2001, Prof. Srđan Hofman), and acquired his M. Mus. degree at the same school with Prof. Zoran Erić (2005). His pieces were performed in Serbia, Romania, Hungary, France, Macedonia, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Brazil and Australia.

Ivan Brkljačić composes for theatre and some of the theater houses he worked for are: Raša Plaović Scene, Atelier 212, Duško Radović, Zvezdara Theater, Beogradsko dramsko pozorište (Belgrade Drama Theater), Toša Jovanović in Zrenjanin, Sterija in Vršac, National Theater and Children Theater in Subotica, National Theater in Banja Luka, City Theater in Podgorica, Holdvilag in Budapest, Arena in Erlangen…

After spending several years (1999–2005) teaching Music Forms at the Mokranjac Music School, he became assistant at the Department of Music Theory, Belgrade Faculty of Music.

From 2007 he is the selector of the International Review of Composers.

He was awarded Mokranjac Award (2005) for When Curtain Rises Seven Times for symphonic orchestra.

The Great Little J.(Veeelika Jelenče) for marimba is a small part of the composer’s doctoral project devoted to the instrumental theater. The marimba (called Jelenče) is one of the characters from the composer’s theater story.  By its music Jelenče presents itself as a cheerful and hilariously smiling character, full of optimism and joy of living, laughter and play, character that is capable of making children laugh in an instance. Its character could connect Jelenče to the form of cartoon.

Three Little Absurds(Tri mala apsurda) were written on a commission from the Belgrade trio Timbre during the summer of 2007. I tried to transfer various, absurd situations from everyday life into an absurd treatment of the trio instruments. Thus, for instance, the flute assumes the role of the bass, the viola provides harmony and the harp is entrusted with melody. Furthermore, the absurdity influenced the form, articulation, and relations of dynamic levels… While composing this piece I had in mind the shortest absurd drama by Eugène Ionesco – “Les Salutations” written on two pages only.