Ivan Brkljačić (1977, Serbia) earned his BA (supervised by Srđan Hofman) and MA (supervised by Zoran Erić) degrees at the Faculty of Music Art (FMU) in Belgrade. In 2012, he won his DMA degree with his artistic project Istar (supervised by Srđan Hofman). He is currently employed as a docent (assistant professor) at the Department for Music Theory at the FMU in Belgrade (since 2005). Since 2007, Brkljačić has been artistic selector of the Review of Composers.

His works have been performed in France, Hungary, Romania, Macedonia, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Sweden, and Australia (his Jinx was performed at the opening of the 2010 World New Music Days in Sydney). He has also composed incidental music for theatre (Atelje 212, the Raša Plaović Stage of the National Theatre in Belgrade, Bitef teatar, Duško Radović and Boško Buha Theatres, and theatres in Zrenjanin, Vršac, Subotica, Banjaluka, Podgorica, Budapest, and Erlangen). He composed the original score for Ustanička ulica, a 2012 feature film by Miroslav Terzić. In 2004, he won the Mokranjac Award for Kada se SEDAM puta digne zavesa, a symphonic orchestra piece. His score for Ustanička ulica was awarded at the 41st Sofest festival as that year’s best original film score and also won the Annual Award of the Muzika klasika journal in the category of incidental music.

Kada se SEDAM puta digne zavesa was composed in 2002, for a tripartite symphonic orchestra. The piece is dedicated to theatre, not as theatre music, but as music about theatre. The number seven, stressed in the title, harbours intimate symbolism for the artist (at the time, that was the number of different theatre stages in Belgrade that featured plays with his music) as well as potentially referring to the universal symbolism of the number seven, offering the option of surveying the musical flow of the composition from another angle as well. The cycle comprises seven movements, the titles of which refer to different elements of contemporary theatre: Curtain, Light, Stage, Actor, Movement, Colour, and Applause. Following the cycle’s tempo indications, one notes a gradual acceleration until the fourth and fifth movements, then a temporary reprieve in the sixth movement, before the concluding Allegro apotheosis. The movements are motivically interrelated. In its written statement, the Mokranjac Award jury concluded that the young composer ‘in his orchestral first, Kada se SEDAM puta digne zavesa, accomplished an extraordinarily imaginative composition. Using contemporary orchestral tools, in its seven movements, he achieved a rather broad range of different sound situations, moods, and contrasts that complement each other, building a harmonious and exciting musical entity’.