Branka Popović (1977, Serbia) graduated in composition and musicology from the Faculty of Music in Belgrade in the class of Zoran Erić. She completed graduate studies of composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the class of Judith Bingham, and remained at the same school as Composition Fellow as part of the Student Fellowship program. She is currently a doctoral student of composition at the Faculty of Music, the class of Zoran Erić.

Branka Popović won First Prize for her trio Dream (I. S .o. F.) at the Summer Musical Academy in Budapest in the class of Gyuala Fekete, and was the finalist of the competitions Canterbury Festival Commission 2005 (London), and Tracey Chadwell Memorial Prize 2005. She was also part of the project of pianist Stephen Gutman What Strikes the Clocke? within Sir Harrison Birtwistle Festival 2004 (London, Southbank Centre), and participated at the Park Lane Group Young Composers’ in 2006 (London). Her composition for mixed choir Lorem ipsum was one of the four pieces performed by The BBC Singers during the workshop dedicated to new choral music.

In past years, the works of Branka Popović were performed at the International Reviews of Composers in Belgrade (The Others, Dream, Song “without” words, Behind the Closed Doors), Yamaha Competition of Brass Quintet in Glasgow (Rainbow Walk), at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Dune), and at other concerts in London and Belgrade (Red Easy a Color, Solitude Within a dense molecular cloud, etc.).

She won the award for best music in film The Br(e)aking Point by Igor Toholj at the 56th Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival held in April 2009.

out of nowhere, string quartet
The composition consists of six sections based on the same motive. The sections are extremely compressed so as to produce the effect of being mere fragments of a larger whole that cannot be seen in its entirety. The piece is inspired by Edward Munch’s painting The Scream.