Branka Popović (b. 1977, Serbia) graduated from both Musicology and Composition departments (composition studies with Zoran Erić) of the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. She obtained her Master of Music Degree in Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London (composition studies with Judith Bingham). She stayed for another year at the Guildhall as the Composition Fellow. She completed her doctorate studies in composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, under the supervision of Zoran Erić.

Her pieces have been presented at events such as the World New Music Days (Bratislava, 2013), Reims Scenes d’Europe (2016), Átlátszó Hang (Budapest, 2017), International Spring Orchestra Festival (Malta, 2016), Festivalul International Meridian 2014 (Romania), 4th International Biennial of Contemporary Music in Koper 2014 (Slovenia), International Review of Composers, Sir Harrison Birtwistle Festival, Brass Spectacular Glasgow, City of London Festival. She has collaborated with many prominent performers and new music ensembles including Stephen Gutman, Ellen Ugelvik, Austrian Ensemble for New Music (Salzburg), Ansamblul devotioModerna (Romania), ARTéfacts Ensemble (Greece), Auris Quartet, ensembles Construction Site, Studio 6, St. George Strings, Metamorphosis, LP Duo, RTS Symphony Orchestra, Academic choir Collegium musicum etc.

Her first chamber opera Petersburg was premiered in June 2012.

Branka Popović is an Associate Professor of composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. Between 2010 and 2015 she was associate of Radio Belgrade 3. From 2015 she has been the artistic director of International Review of Composers. She has received many awards and recognitions in the country and abroad.

About the piece

The piece Crne rupe nisu tako crne [Black Holes are not so black] for violin, cello and piano, is remotely associated with the phenomenon of Hawking’s radiation, which is presupposed to radiate from the horizon of events of a black hole. According to Hawking, black holes, these space objects of immense gravitational force, whose horizon of events nothing can escape, nevertheless radiate some sort of radiation which over time causes their mass and energy to reduce to their vanishing point – black holes radiate themselves to oblivion.

The piano trio evokes this process through dense vertical structures out of which various accords are separated, radiated, until the music current gradually becomes one with the silence.