Nataša Bogojević (1966) is award-winning and internationally acclaimed composer, pianist and educator. She is regarded as the creator of highly original, passionate, and imaginative pieces. Her music is not possible to categorize; while deeply rooted in classical tradition she is constantly searching for different inspiration to create new, engaging, and inventive scores.
She studied composition with professor Srđan Hofman at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. Since 1995 she has continued her musical career in Chicago, USA. She is the recipient of numerous international honors and awards, including the Jeff Award, New Music Chicago, IRC UNESCO, Opera Contempo, Access Contemporary Music.

She composes music for chamber ensembles as well as vocal, symphonic, film and theatre music. Major soloists, ensembles and orchestras performed her music on four continents. Her biography appeared in several books including “The World of Woman in Classical Music” by Dr. Anne Gray, Seven Locks Press (March 2007).

About the piece

The Ephemeral Orphanage is composition for chamber ensemble and film by Lisa Barcy. The work has been commissioned by Access Contemporary Music (ACM) and popular Sound of Silent Film Festival which is an unique event featuring new short silent films in every conceivable genre screened with newly composed musical scores performed live. The scores are written with the “time code” which provides synchronicity of the film with live music ensemble.

The synopsis of The Ephemeral Orphanage is a group of tattered paper dolls who daydream alternate realities and surreptitiously explore the hidden lives of their strict and secretive caregivers.

Hijinks ensue and discoveries are made as the characters live out their childhood fantasies. Created with found paper dolls cut from a 1920’s newspaper and found in an attic of filmmaker’s grandmother, the film explores the adults attempt to dictate what girls learn, and the children’s talent for discovering forbidden knowledge.

The music composition is structured as the web of familiar and new melodious particles – leitmotifs. The world of musical signs is mixed with the world of strange protagonists and their characters in the animated film. The synthesis of the multimedia reality of this work, gives opportunity to the music and the film to have equal roles.

The work has been premiered at the Sound of Silent Film Festival in April of 2021 in Chicago. After the success and great reviews after its premiere, it was also presented at the Thirsty Ear Festival and then in May of 2023 at the magical ambiance of the Symphony Space in New York.