Đorđe Marković completed his undergraduate and master studies of composition at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, in the class of Zoran Mulić. He further finished the postgraduate studies of composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz with Beat Furrer. Before that, he had graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad.

His works have been performed at festivals such as the International Review of Composers in Belgrade, Izlog suvremenog zvuka in Zagreb, Kings Place Festival in London, Crossroads in Salzburg, Rainy Days in Luxembourg, Contrasti in Trento, Impuls in Graz, MIKSTUR in Barcelona, New Music Week in Larissa (Greece), reMusik in St Petersburg, XII Festival de Música Contemporánea Zahir in Seville, University of Northern Iowa New Music Festival (USA), etc.

His music has been performed by ensembles such as the London Sinfonietta, United Instruments of Lucilin, Synaesthesis, Klangforum Wien+PPCM, MotoContrario, Aleph Gitarrenquartett, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble – MSME/MASM, Vertixe Sonora, Ensemble Studio 6 and others.

Đorđe Marković’s scores are part of the catalogue of the French publisher BabelScores.

About the piece

pneuma is an electroacoustic piece in which I tried to use the sound information from a fixed medium as an extension of the sound palette of an acoustic instrument. In this sense, the idea and inspiration was to treat the accordion differently from its common use – not as a keyboard and harmony instrument, but rather as a wind instrument (which it actually is), so that the element of breath as an accompanying component of sound is further highlighted or even turned into a main material. In other words, to move the sound of breathing, which exists as a background sound component of (every) wind instrument, to the front so that the accordion can come closer to the immediacy of other (wind) instruments whose sound is initiated/manipulated directly by the human breath. The title of the piece comes from an ancient Greek word which, on the one hand, denotes human breath and soul, and on the other, the (mechanic) movement of air… The piece was composed at the invitation of the accordionist Branko Džinović.