Vladimir Korać (b. 1986) graduated from the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, Department of composition, where he studied with Srđan Hofman. He completed Doctoral academic studies at the same Faculty, in the class of Zoran Erić. Currently he works as an assistant professor at the Chair for composition and orchestration of the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. He attended various master classes and workshops: International Summer Academy Prague-Vienna-Budapest, Sarajevo Sonic Studio, Internationale Ferienkurse Für Neue Musik Darmstadt, Synthi100, Sonemus, Delian Academy for New Musis, where he worked with renowned composers such as Philippe Manoury, Raphael Cendo, Mark Andre, Pierluigi Billone, Georges Aperghis, Enno Poppe, Simon Steen-Andersen, Richard Barrett and others. Vladimir Korać’s works have been performed in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Slovakia, Greece, Iran, at festivals ISA, Sarajevo Sonic Studio, Die jüngste Musik unserer Zeit, Izlog suvremenog zvuka, Vienna International Saxfest, 18th World Saxophone Congress, Međunarodna tribina kompozitora, Sarajevo Sonic Studio, Tehran International Electronic Music Festival, etc.

About the piece

The starting impulse in composing the piece Pleiades was the play with sound clusters and possible ways of performing them. The score contains clusters of different shape which, by way of their outline, dynamics from pppp to p and an additional marking soft cluster, direct the performer to lightly press the hand and fingers in the keys of the piano in order to get gentle cluster sounds of unpredictible composition because the pressure applied to the keys is so light that certain piano hammers will not hit the strings strong enough, but they will nevertheless free them to resonate with the others. Clusters also appear as a result of hitting the strings with a palm of a hand, and “entering” inside the instrument opens possibilities to produce other particular piano sounds, especially harmonics. Clusters and harmonics are then recorded and these sound samples form the basis for all other content of the piece, both in the piano part – following the spectral analyses of the samples, their “internal” content has shaped the harmonic-melodic component of the piece – and in the electronic part, where electronic instruments were built thanks to the use of these sound samples. The piece was commissioned by the pianist Neda Hofman.