Jug K. Marković (1987, Jug Marković was born in Belgrade in 1987. He graduated from the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, where he studied composition with Vlastimir Trajković and Zoran Erić. He also completed studies of archeology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. He pursued further studies at IRCAM in Paris in the field of electronic and computer music, as a recepient of the scholarship of the French Government.
Jug Marković is the laureat of the ’Stevan Mokranjac’ Award 2019 for his composition De Rerum Natura for orchestra. He won the First Prize of the New Classics Competition (organized by the Moscow Conservatory ‘Tchaikovsky’, 2020) for his String quartet Neon Seed, as well as the Third prize of the International Competition ‘Sofia Gubaidulina’ in Kazan. Marković is also the recipient of the ISCM Young Composers Award 2019 for his choral wokr Nirvana, which was performed by the Latvian Radio Choir at the World New Music Days in Tallinn. He was the delegate of the Composers Association of Serbia at the same festival.
His music has been performed at the renowned festivals such as the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2014, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2016, 2021 Dublin New Music 2020, Time of Music 2019, ManiFeste 2019, ISCM World Music Days 2019. He attended masterclasses of the composers such as Michael Finnissy, Eno Poppe, Marc Andre, Franck Bedrossian, Kaija Saariaho. He was the participant of the seminars and summer music academies in Darmstadt (47. Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik), Paris (ManiFeste IRCAM), Graz (11. Internationale Komponistenakademie für zeitgenössische Musik), Lugano (Ticino Festival Academy 2020). So far he has collaborated with the world renowned contemporary music ensembles such as the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Mivos Quartet, Diotima Quartet, Divertimento Ensemble, Latvian Radio Choir, Chamber Choir Ireland, as well as symphony orchestra among which the and Brussels Philharmonic. He has also collaborated with many Serbian ensembles such as the Ensemble Metamorphosis, RTS Symphony Orchestra, Construction Site Ensemble. In 2018 he represented Serbia at the 65th International Rostrum of Composers with his piece Vokativ (which was premiered by the RTS Symphony Orchestra at the International Review of Composers in 2017), where he was awarded (as the fifth laureate) the official recommendation of the international jury. He was the composer in residence at Snape Maltings, UK, where he was menthored by the composer Michael Finnissy, and also the composer in residence at the Kaluste Gulbenkian Fondation in Lisbon.
Jug Marković approaches music writing in a conscious-intuitive manner. He tries to distance himself from any rigid, predetermined concepts and systems. His music does not have any extra-musical meaning. He is particularly interested in highly energetic music, in intense sound worlds of dense textures, but also in stylistic eclecticism.
About the piece
rusty rose is a composition in which electronic part (that also represents the foundation for further construction of the acoustic part) was created through a series of improvisations using two tools: time stretch and cross synthesis. The entire electronic part is based on the manipulation of two audio files: a recording of Danilo Kiš’s poem Đubrište recited by vocal artist Thea Soti for the purposes of this project and barely recognizable particles of the madrigal Lamento della Ninfa by Claudio Monteverdi. The two files and their stretched bits merge into each other with different cross-synthesis techniques and mutate in the frequency domain.
The acoustic part of the flute, cello and percussion is devoid of any grand soloistic gestures and its idea is to never take precedence and full attention over electronics, but to merge into it subtly and intimately, as well as to imperceptibly underline the timbre and melancholic harmony of the rusty rose.