Nina Perović

Nina Perović (1985, Montenegro) completed her BA and specialist studies in composition at the Academy of Music in Cetinje, in the class of Professor Žarko Mirković. At the same time, she also acquired a BA and specialist degree in piano in the class of Professors Aleksandar Serdar and Vladimir Bochkarev. Thanks to a Basileus scholarship, she continued her studies of composition at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, in the class of Professor Uroš Rojko, where she obtained her MA degree. She is currently enrolled in the doctoral study programme of composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, with Professor Srđan Hofman as her supervisor. Works by Perović have been performed in Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. She has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Kompositions-Preis gestiftet vom Soziale und Kulturelle Einrichtungen for her piece Gusle at the 2011 Prague–Vienna–Budapest Summer Academy.

Klanjalica (Beggar’s Song) for mezzo-soprano, violoncello, piano, and electronics (MIDI keyboard, Apple Mac computer, and Logic Pro software) was commissioned by Construction Site New Music Ensemble in 2014. The piece is based on a klanjalica, a beggar’s folk song. The opening section illustrates the misery and pointlessness that form the song’s basic theme. The song’s ensuing musical flow rests on alternation between melancholy and expressivity, only to culminate with the full sound of a powerful lament and kind of expression, whose style relies on past epochs. The presence of a folk melody is also reflected in the use of samples of a folk instrument (the gusle) in the work’s electronic layer, which in this case may relate to the notion of music box.