Echoes of Resistance:
Music and the Fragile Human Voice

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Echoes of Resistance:
Music and the Fragile Human Voice

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Damjan Jovičin

Miroljubivi zvučni štit (Merciful Soundshield)

Performed by Students and Alumni of the Faculty of Music

and Students of the University of Arts in Belgrade

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Nataša Penezić, solo piano

Lecture recital 

‘Slow March’: Music and Politics
in Frederic Rzewski’s Piano Music

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Adriana Toacsen, solo piano

Recital 

The Pianist of Today – Performer, Director, Actor?

Cristian Bence-Muk, Schizophrenia

 Rubin Szabó Bázsa Lovász, Malneirophrenia

Diana Rotaru, Monster Under My Bed

Irina Pernes, Tecktonik

Cătălin Creţu, A Butterfly on the Lamp

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Miroljubivi zvučni štit (Merciful Soundshield)

Merciful Soundshield (2025) by Damjan Jovičin is a sonic activism piece that addresses the misuse of sound. It is an initiative that brought together students and professors of the Faculty of Music in Belgrade at the Students’ Cultural Center on April 5, 2025. The first performance included a large percussion installation made of Javanese Gamelan and Kolintang from North Sulawesi, joined by strings. The ensemble created sound masses and initiated the process of developing consciousness through sound. The piece represents an artistic attempt to overcome the violence through the power of sound-making. The second version, created for a chamber orchestra, was performed in an open space on the Students’ Square on May 10, 2025, and conducted by the composer.

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Damjan Jovičin, D.M.A., is a contemporary composer. He completed his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral studies in Music Composition at the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, under the mentorship of professors Zoran Erić and Tatjana Milošević. Throughout his education, he participated in master classes and lectures with renowned composers, including Brian Ferneyhough, David Rosenboom, Ulrich Krieger, Tristan Murail, Mark Applebaum, and Ivo Medek. As a part of the Erasmus+ exchange program, he spent one semester at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. Jovičin is an active participant in both national and international festivals where his works have been premiered. Notable festivals include the Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Germany), the isaFestival (Austria), the Time of Music (Finland), the Soundmine (Belgium), the Walden Creative Musicians Retreat (USA), BEMUS – Belgrade Music Festival (Serbia), and the International Review of Composers (Serbia), among others. His orchestral piece Matematički san was commissioned for the 49th BEMUS. He received the City of Belgrade Prize for his chamber opera Ulica milosrđa (2022). Additionally, Jovičin won the DAM Festival Award at the Balkan Composer Competition in Priština, first prizes in piano composition at the “Isidor Bajić” Festival in Novi Sad and the International Piano Competition in Smederevo, as well as a second prize at the “Rudolf Brucci” Saxophone Composition Competition. Jovičin has curated a variety of sonic activism, multimedia, and thematic events at institutions such as the Banski Dvor, the Students’ Cultural Center, and the Music Gallery of the Ilija M. Kolarac Endowment. These include Miroljubivi zvučni štit, Damjan Jovičin & Performans Kolektiv, Veče sinestezije, Zvučne zrake, Dijalozi umjetnika, Free From Form, and Pesme iskupljenja. He also composed music for the animated movie Tiamat (author Darko Dacović), the plays Nadpop Kojović (director Vida Ognjenović) and Ja sam vetar (director Filip Grinvald), and for the movie Anđela (director Aleksandar Aleksić).

E-mail: jovicindamjan@gmail.com 

 

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‘Slow March’: Music and Politics in Frederic Rzewski’s Piano Music

Lecture recital by Nataša Penezić, solo piano

Frederic Rzewski, the American composer-pianist, was often characterized as a “political composer”. Even though he tried to relinquish this notion in his writings, stating that he was no more political than Beethoven, his music and his pianism were clear, open statements of his (highly charged) political opinions. Drawing inspiration from revolutionary songs, marches, literature, diary entries, and prisoners’ letters, which were incorporated in and presented through music in creative, meaningful, concise, and beautiful ways, the composer generated one of the most original contributions in the recent history of pianism. This lecture recital focuses on Rzewski’s wide-ranging use of extended techniques, improvisational aspects, and the speaking pianist genre, which can be regarded as the founding features of his innovative musical language, allowing for such complex issues to integrate into contemporary pianism.

 

Nataša Penezić, D.M.A., is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, where she teaches courses on the Development of Pianism and the Development of Performance. At the same Faculty, she defended her Doctoral artistic project titled The Interpretation of New Expressive Means in Selected Piano Works by Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, and Frederic Rzewski in 2018. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has participated in various festivals in Serbia and Europe. She has performed with the KREDO orchestra of Moscow, the Chioggia Festival Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble of the SYNC Centre Novi Sad, and Belgrade’s Muzikon Chamber Orchestra. She is dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century music and has actively collaborated with many composers, most notably Frederic Rzewski (1938–2021), Sofia Gubaidulina (1931–2025), Vladan Radovanović (1938–2023), Gavin Bryars, Miroslav Miša Savić, and Ana Gnjatović.

E-mail: penezicnatasa@gmail.com

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The Pianist of Today – Performer, Director, Actor?

Recital by Adriana Toacsen, solo piano

Adriana Toacsen invites the audience to a journey into the world of contemporary music, from the perspective of a performer who has directly experienced working with numerous Romanian and international composers. Her presentation explores both the challenges and the freedom offered by this repertoire: from unconventional notation and extended performance techniques to the crucial role of dialogue between composer and performer in the creative process. Toacsen extends an invitation to curiosity and to a living relationship with new music – a territory where surprise, emotion, and innovation constantly converge.

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Schizophrenia (Cristian Bence-Muk, 2023) combines intricate textures and extended techniques to evoke the psychological complexity suggested by its title. This contemporary solo piano work, dedicated to Adriana Toacsen, aims to present short, impactful pieces suitable for encore performances, inviting listeners to encounter “contrasting sections or superimposed conflicting materials: calm versus frantic, lyrical versus harsh, as well as tonal or semi-tonal passages disrupted by dissonance”. Toacsen also notes that “the title Schizophrenia implies divisions, dualities, inner conflict, and fragmentation”. The foundation of the work consists of two six-note series, taken from the previous two serial compositions by the same author. In just a few minutes, these series develop and intertwine freely, thus forming an intense sonic landscape reinforced by strikes on the instrument and the performer’s agitated cries. As Bence-Muk stated in the interview for Encore, “An artist can reflect certain socio-cultural aspects of their time like a mirror, or they can take a stance and oppose them, distancing themselves through critique and denial of certain contemporary trends, positioning themselves somewhat outside their time. Referring to the daily pressures of multitasking today, I would say this piece fits more in the first category – reflecting present aspects – but by suggesting the disastrous psychological effects of the contemporary rhythm of life, it also achieves a protesting detachment from certain current ‘values’ and, implicitly, a distancing from the temporal flow of the present”.

 

Malneirophrenia (Rubin Szabó Bázsa Lovász, 2020/2023) belongs to a set of works commissioned and performed under the Encore (bisuri contemporane) projects. Malneirophrenia is known as a “foul, heavy, negative state of mind one finds oneself in after a nightmare”. Lovász conveys this emotional experience through an expressive solo piano miniature in which the rhythmic component becomes dominant and almost obsessive as the piece progresses. Through the use of the pedal and fragmented melodic lines, the contours of the music are transferred across registers and develop into potent vertical structures, creating an intense sonic texture that carries within it a residue of almost Lisztian provenance.

 

Monster Under My Bed (Diana Rotaru, 2024) was commissioned by the Encore Association for the project An Elephant in the City. Adriana Toacsen, the pianist to whom the piece is dedicated, explains that this work “plays with the psychological/emotional unease associated with nocturnal fear (e.g., imaginary monsters in childhood), filtered through Rotaru’s modern compositional language”. The composition opens in the piano’s low register, with short, stealthy motifs resembling cautious steps. Gradually, the instrument transforms into a resonant sound box with its strings and body being struck, plucked, and prepared to produce a variety of percussive timbres. From the very beginning, the pianist subtly incorporates the voice as an additional expressive layer, weaving it into the texture alongside the piano part. The musical flow unfolds through extended techniques, most notably the piano preparation, while the performer’s voice contributes to a unique timbral dimension throughout the piece. The central part introduces a moment of calm, built on a broken melodic line contrasted with knocking on the body of the instrument. As Toacsen remarks, the title of the piece “suggests an exploration of something hidden, scary, possibly in the mind, or something uncanny in a familiar place”. Finally, following the melodic and rhythmic contours shaped by the piano part, the voice of the pianist gradually rises, growing in intensity and ultimately culminating in a scream. At that moment, the monster is revealed.

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Tecktonik (Irina Pernes, 2024) was inspired by techno music and raves, by their effervescent energy and the ethos of a sound world that oscillates between sensual, dark, explosive, and industrial nuances. Focusing particularly on gesture and noise, the piece serves as an homage to musique concrète. The composition was commissioned by the Mixtur Festival for pianist Francisco Morais.

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A Butterfly on the Lamp (Cătălin Creţu, 2024) represents the composer’s exploration of new sonic realms through simple methods of piano preparation. The resulting sound offers the audience a surprising and engaging experience. Creţu has returned to the prepared piano in several of his works, sometimes combining it with programming systems and sensor technology to further expand its expressive potential.

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Adriana Toacsen, Ph.D., is a Romanian pianist, professor, and artistic director whose work is closely tied to the promotion of contemporary music. Through her project Encore, she has transformed the traditional encore into a declaration of love for contemporary music, providing audiences with an intimate, complex, and sincere encounter with the sound world of the present. Her programs stand out for their balance between the elegance of the classical repertoire and the energy of modern and contemporary works, with a particular focus on Romanian composers. With a relaxed stage presence and an ever-curious spirit, Toacsen sometimes turns her recitals into engaging narratives for children, parents, and grandparents alike, creating memorable experiences that extend beyond conventional concert formats. She has performed at major festivals in Bucharest, Cluj, Timișoara, Sibiu, Iași, Brașov, Chișinău, and Potsdam, and has established long-lasting collaborations in duos and trios. Her subtle musical intelligence, profound sonority, and dedication to sharing music with sincerity and grace have earned her recognition as a sensitive interpreter and an ‘advocate’ for contemporary creativity. As both pianist and artistic director, Toacsen does not simply perform the music of her time – she challenges it to grow, creating dialogues between tradition and innovation and guiding audiences toward a deeper understanding of contemporary artistic expression.

E-mail: adrianatoacsen@gmail.com

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