Đorđe Marković (Serbia) holds a BA and MA degree in composition from the class of Zoran Mulić at the Academy of Art in Novi Sad, as well as a postgradu-ate degree from the class of Beat Furrer at the University of the Arts in Graz. Before studying music, he also studied and graduated with a degree in philos-ophy. His works have been performed at A-fest in Novi Sad, KoMA festival and the International Review of Composers in Belgrade, Izlog suvremenog zvuka (Showroom of Contemporary Sound) in Zagreb, Kings Place Fes-tival in London, Dimitria Festival in Thessaloniki, Southside in Hong Kong, Weidner Center for the Performing Arts in Green Bay (Wisconsin, USA), Cross-roads International Contemporary Music Festival in Salzburg, as well as in Paris, Graz, Banjaluka, Ljubljana, Trieste, and numerous venues in Serbia. Music by Marković has been performed by London Sinfonietta, as well as Nikel, Disso-nArt, Synaesthesis, Studio 6, Construction Site New Music Ensemble, St. George Strings, etc. In 2013, his piece Ambiente was selected as one of the three winning entries at the RSVP competition of London Sinfonietta, who premièred the work in Great Britain. He won first award at the Rudolf Brucci national composers’ competition in 2015.

Phonemes
According to some, the language we speak is the first music we encounter and further, in such views, music as an element in its own right exists or emerges when the purely sonic quality of that language becomes primary. Also, the smallest sound unit of this quality of language is called a phoneme (φώνημα, phonēma), which literally means sound. Phonemes is thus a piece that interprets those sound elements of verbal language in a purely musical way, treating their peculiar sonority as an integral part of its musical material, that is, as an “extension” of it. The piece was written in 2016, following a request from flutist Marija Pilipović, for her resi-dence in Slovenia as part of the Forum of Slavic Cultures programme.