Biography
Quartet “Maestre” is an unusual musical band which is the result of a long-standing friendship among four professors at “Petar Krančević” Music School in Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia. The quartet comprises Dušanka Gavrilović and Milda Kuzminac (piano), Zorica Opačić (tamburitsa) and Jelena Vlaović (flute).
A desire for companionship, playing music and jointly enjoying the beauty of high quality music have contributed to the energy and good vibrations that are the trademark of this musical group. The quartet’s repertoire comprises a variety of works: popular classical compositions, covers of well-known melodies from various music genres, a concert presenting Ludwig van Beethoven’s most popular works, as well as works from the musical cultural legacy of Serbia, including such composers as Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac, Stanislav Binički and Isidor Bajić. The band adapts the musical literature by writing its own arrangements.
The group’s most recently completed project took place in December 2020, a concert (musical and stage performance) celebrating 250 years of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth, while the band’s first performance took place in December 2016, in Srem Museum, Sremska Mitrovica. Significant performances included: Grand Hall of the Ilija M. Kolarac Foundation in Belgrade, where the band has been invited as guests a number of times, Studio М, Novi Sad, on which occasion a radio show was recorded, as well as material for a television program on Novi Sad TV, concerts in Belgrade (Cultural Institution “Vuk Stefanović Karadžić”), the International Women’s Club (IWC) charity bazaar at the Belgrade exposition center on multiple occasions and “Tea at 8” in Ruma. The “Maestre” quartet has also held charity concerts in their home town: “Love Painted in Notes” in the “Lazar Vozarević” gallery, the proceeds of which were used to purchase chairs for the gallery, transforming it into a music hall, аs well as a concert in the “Dobrica Milutinović” theater, which generated significant funding for the renovation of the auditorium of “Petar Krančević” Music School. The band also succeeded in obtaining the patronage of the IWC to hold five concerts in senior citizen homes across Vojvodina, which also garnered the donation of an electric piano for “Petar Krančević” Music School. In addition, the “Maestre” quartet conducts educational concerts, as well as promotions of classical music and instruments. The band has held a series of concerts tailored exclusively to high school students at student dorms in Sremska Mitrovica, Sombor, Vršac, Zrenjanin and Niš.
Programme
Y. Tiersen: Valse d’Amelie, La Noyee, J’y Suis Jamais Alle
A. Khachaturian: Masquerade Waltz
J. Brahms: Hungarian dances no 1, 5:
F. Schubert: Serenade
E. Grieg: Peer Gynt
V. Gavrilin: Sketches: Little Clock, Waltz, March
V. Gryaznov - G. Bizet: Habanera
A. Dvorak: Slavonic dance e minor
A. Piazzola - K&G Buniatishvili: Libertango