Skip to content Skip to footer

Belma Alić holds a Ph.D. in Cello and she is a Professor at the Music Academy in Sarajevo: My life-long wish is to create an active concert scene in BiH

Belma Alić, a doctor of the cello, has directed her strength to the creation of an active concert scene in Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The biggest desire of this artist is to form the most powerful and best orchestra in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She says that this is her goal, which she will not give up. She is currently an associate professor at the Music Academy in Sarajevo, where she has been working since she finished her studies in 2005.

– First I worked as an assistant to my professor, and after graduation, I am an associate professor. I lectured on a Joint music and string orchestra, and from next year, I will have my class of cello students – she says.

She began playing cello quite by accident. She enrolled Music school in Zenica at the age of eight and, as she says, like all children she has chosen the most popular instrument at that time – violin.

– Because of the excessive interest in the violin, and almost no interest for the violoncello, the commission advised me to try playing a cello. At that moment, it was a very sad situation for me, which turned out to be very good today. I think that commission at that time changed my course of life, because if I had assigned for violin, who knows, maybe today I would not be a musician – Belma recalls.

When she enrolled in a music school, she did not have any great love for music as much as she had for the sound of violin, and later the cello. In addition to playing, she also taught the cello repertoire, so love for classical music developed.

When it comes to favorite composers, there is Ludwig van Beethoven who, as she says, rises enthusiasm and faith in humanity. She points out that Beethoven was a great humanist, and that his music summarizes all the drama of human life and society as a whole.

-Of course, Johann Sebastian Bach is unmatched because he cleanses the soul and body. However, I am very interested in contemporary music and I would like to single out Iannis Xenakis, Lucian Berry … I would like to emphasize our composers like Ališer Sijarić who is an outstanding composer, and Dino Rešidbegović, a young composer and first composer in Bosnia and Herzegovina – she says.

Her concert activities are closely related to the Music Academy and most often, she plays in Sarajevo, or Bosnia and Herzegovina. She says that this is her personal decision because she wants to actively participate in the concert season of Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, when it comes to classical and contemporary art music, is very weak.

-I play abroad a lot, I have my ensemble in Austria and Italy and my playing is related to the summer or winter when we have a couple of weeks break at the Music Academy. My art life has been changed when I met Scottish professor of composition Nigel Osborne, who is a great friend of Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He composed a lot for musicians from Bosnia and Herzegovina and I am very interested in a concert tour with his opera ‘Differences of Demolition’, and the poet Goran Simić wrote the libretto for that opera. The project lasted for two years and the ensemble was composed of six musicians from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United Kingdom. With this ensemble we visited all significant auditoriums in Europe – says Alić.

Festivals of Classical Music in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Alić wants to praise the organizers of the festivals of classical music in Bosnia and Herzegovina that matters, because there is no permanent concert season.

– To organize such a festival is extremely difficult. Those festivals are primarily “Muzika na žici“, led by professor Violeta Smajlović Huart, then the festival that we are organizing at the Academy, “Sarajevo Chamber Music Festival“, and I would greatly praise Andrea Nikolić, who leads “Večeri klasične muzike“ in Vareš. It is a challenge. Vareš is a nice little town with a fantastic playroom in the Franciscan church, and Andrea puts a great effort in this – says Belma.

Leave a comment

0/100