Stanko Simić

Stanko Simić (1987, Serbia) completed his undergraduate studies (with prof. Vlastimir Trajković) and master studies (with prof. Zoran Erić) in composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade in 2015, and enrolled in doctoral studies in composition in the class of Zoran Erić. At the same time, he completed his master’s studies in piano in the class of Lidija Stanković (2011) and was named the student with the best success in the main subject (2010), and a couple of years later he became the winner of the Josip Slavenski Fund Award for composition for Talasi (Waves) (2013). In recent years, he has participated in seminars with eminent composers such as Luca Francesconi, Larry Alan Smith, Rokus de Groot, Nils Henrik Asheim, Clemens Gadenstatter, Jan Robin. He was a finalist in the composition competition Krzysztof Penderecki – Arboretum (Poland, 2012), as well as in the competition Città di Udine (Italy, 2014). His works were performed by numerous orchestras and soloists, including the Symphony Orchestra of the Radio Television of Serbia and Bojan Suđić, Ensemble Metamorphosis, the Strings St George, Bizjak Piano Duo, Singidunum Trio, Novi Sad Wind Quintet, Aratos Trio and others. He is the co-author of the project of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Digitization of Complete Piano Music by Vasilije Mokranjac. He is currently employed as a teaching assistant at the Department of Composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade and is in the final year of doctoral studies in composition in the class of Zoran Erić

About the work

Butterfly Dream: Reading the literature of the East, I came across an interesting story: “Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamed that I was a butterfly. Fluttering around, happy and cheerful, I did what I wanted. I was not aware that I was Chuang Tzu. Suddenly, I woke up, and look, I was Chuang Tzu again. Now I don’t know if I’m a man who dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly who dreams of being a man? There must be a difference between a human and a butterfly! This is what is called the transformation of things.” (Butterfly Dream, Chuang Tse, 4th century BC)