Acknowledgments

In the early 1980s, my family relocated from Paris, France, to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where I would spend some of the most treasured days of my childhood. My teenage years encapsulate the zeitgeist of 1980s Belgrade with the birth of the alternative music scene, concerts of new wave, punk, and experimental music, the underground late-night scene at the club of the Fine Arts Academy (“Akademija”), and the golden years of the Student Cultural Center (SKC), where I spent nearly every day with my inseparable friends, Dača, Lidija, Mara, and Tamara. I would have never imagined that decades later, I would be writing a book about Belgrade, its avant-garde music, and institutions that had such a profound influence on my formative years.

Writing this book was bittersweet. Losing my beloved brother Robert in the summer of 2024 was a shattering experience, leaving me paralyzed with grief. My family’s support during this time was so crucial, so I want to thank my parents, Michael and Maryann, my sister Apollonia, and my nephew Graylen. Although it pales in comparison to the loss of my brother, the deaths of our cherished pets, Pooch and my favorite cat Hunter (aka Little Guy), followed. So, this book was born during the most challenging and heartbreaking period of my life.

In the winter of 2018, I received a message from my colleague, Kevin Karnes, asking me if I had heard about the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade. I was caught off guard but was filled with excitement that someone outside Yugoslavia was familiar with a place where I spent nearly every day of my adolescence. I responded with, “The SKC? Of course!” Kevin had been reading Amy Bryzgel’s Performance Art in Eastern Europe since 1960 at the time, so he sent me some screenshots and asked if I was familiar with the alternative music scene at the SKC. I responded with, “I was part of that music scene.” He suggested that I should write a book about it. And so I did. So, I would like to thank Kevin for initiating the idea and enthusiastically supporting my work on Yugoslav music.

I started the preliminary research on this book in October 2018, when I went to Belgrade to canvass archival material, gather preliminary secondary scholarship, and meet some of the composers and performers – the protagonists of my book – as well as musicologists at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In January 2019, I went to Belgrade to conduct site-specific, archival, and interview-based research. My work was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic for two years. At some point, I wondered if I would ever be able to return to Belgrade to finish my research. I managed to return in January 2022, a month before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which awoke a collective anti-US sentiment in Serbia, amplified by the anniversary of the US/NATO-led bombing of Serbia (March 24, 1999). After several unpleasant experiences, I cut my planned year-long research trip short and left Serbia after only three months. I abandoned the project and went to Basel, Switzerland, where I worked on two other books (on Elliott Carter and Jonathan Harvey). So, it is rather astonishing that this book was ever finished.

But I did finish it with the help of many individuals and institutions. I would like to thank the composers who shared their fascinating stories and provided me with materials from their personal archives that, otherwise, would have been impossible to obtain (even though, with a heavy heart, I had to cut out most of the illustrations). Over the past few years, I have grown so fond of them, and I cherish their friendship. They are Miroslav “Miša” Savić, Vladimir Tošić, Vladan Radovanović, Miloš Raičković, Ognjen Bogdanović, Nataša Bogojević, and Ivana Stefanović. I would also like to thank the pianist Nada Kolundžija, one of the original members of the Ensemble for Different New Music, and the family of Milimir Drašković – composer Biljana and their son Marko – for their many wonderful conversations. I extend my gratitude to Rajko Maksimović for his correspondence and also to Igor Gostuški for granting me permission to use the material pertaining to the Magnificent Seven. My sincerest thanks to Hristina Medić for providing me with bibliographical details, photographs, and music scores of Ludmila Frajt.

During my visits to Belgrade, I met some amazing scholars at the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA) and the Faculty of Music (FMU), without whose help writing this book would have been more difficult. From SASA, I would like to thank Ivana Medić and Melita Milin, the first musicologists I met during my initial visit in 2018 and with whom I have collaborated on several projects since. Several other colleagues also helped through correspondence, sharing their research, scanning unpublished material from their library, and granting permissions: Miloš Bralović, Katarina Tomašević, Aleksandar Vasić, and Biljana Milanović. I am grateful that I met Ivana Miladinović Prica, a musicologist at the FMU, with whom I continue to work on many exciting projects. (Ivana also got to spend a year at Emory as a Fulbright Scholar, which was the highlight of our friendship and collaboration.) Also, I extend my thanks to the notable FMU emerita, Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman. During my Fulbright residency at the FMU, Ivan Brkljačić and Srdjan Teparić contributed to making my experience memorable. I would also like to thank Pedja Repanić for gifting me dozens of music scores by Serbian composers.

During my nine-month research trip in 2019, I immersed myself in the archival collections of the Student Cultural Center. I would like to thank Ljubinka Gavran, the director of the archive at that time, for her daily conversations, for preparing my collections, and for providing me with some crucial information. Many of the photographs in the SKC collections were captured by the iconic photographer Nebojša Čanković, the SKC official photographer in the 1970s and 1980s. I am grateful for his timeless work and for permitting me to use his photos in my book. I would also like to thank other notable photographers who allowed me to reproduce their work: Goranka Matić, Sanja Latinović, and Enes Midžić, as well as filmmaker Zoran Solomun.

I would like to thank all other individuals and institutions who provided me with the material and permissions (in alphabetical order): Zoja Bojić, a relative of Josip Slavenski; Borislav Čičovački, the spouse of the late Isidora Žebeljan and the executor of the Ljubica Marić archive; the Composers’ Association of Serbia; the Croatian Music Institute; Miloš Erić, the son of Zoran Erić; the Faculty of Music Library and Archive; the Historical Archives of Ljubljana; the Institute of Musicology at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Archive; the Marinko Sudac Collection at the Museum of Avant-Garde; Milan Milojković, musicologist; the Mokranjac Music School Archive; Music Biennale Zagreb (MBZ) Archive, primarily Petra Pavić and the current MBZ artistic director and my dear friend, Davor Vincze; the National Museum in Belgrade; the National Theater of Serbia Archive; Ivana Neimarević, a musicologist and music editor of the Third Program of Radio Belgrade; Radio Television Serbia, primarily Ana Milićević, RTS Editor, the Department of Development; and Sarajevo Publishing.

Of course, none of my trips to Belgrade would have been possible without the generous support of my home institution, Emory University. I would like to thank the Music Department, especially my Chair, Stephen Crist, for his unwavering support. I extend my gratitude to Peter Shirts, the Music Librarian, who was always ready to help me obtain books, articles, scores, and recordings I needed, from anywhere in the world. I thank the Emory College of Arts and Sciences for their generous support over the years with the following grants: Arts and Humanistic Inquiry Grant; Center for Faculty Development and Excellence Public Scholarship Advancement Fund; Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry Interdisciplinary Research Seminar; Halle Institute Global Perspectives on Race+, Ethnicity+, Nation+ Grant; Program to Enhance Research and Scholarship; Provost Research Grant; and University Research Committee–Halle Institute for Global Research and Learning.

My work was also supported by grants from the following institutions: Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society and the Fulbright Scholar Program. I would particularly like to thank Vukica Stanković, Public Engagement Specialist and Fulbright Liaison at the US Embassy in Belgrade, for supporting my work and projects in Belgrade.

My trips to Belgrade are always made extra special by my dearest childhood friends, Danica (Djurić) Čanković, Marija (Blagojević) Pavlović, Lidija (Rogan) Prokopić, and Tamara Rodić, and my family, cousins Jovana and Viktor Jovanović, uncle Nebojša, and aunt Sonja. Thank you for all our unforgettable coffee breaks, dinners, night outs in Skadarlija and Beton Hala, cruises on Sava and Danube, trips to Novi Sad, Fruška Gora, and Herceg Novi (Montenegro), and many other memories I will always carry with me. Thank you for coming to all my events in Belgrade (concerts, promotions, exhibitions); your support always means so much.

Lastly, I would like to thank the series editors, David Beard and Philip Rupprecht, who have been waiting patiently for my book (which I promised to send them in 2020, but then who could have expected what was to come?). Thank you for your patience, support, and trust. Also, thank you for soliciting such thoughtful reviewers, whose suggestions and insight greatly improved my book. I extend my sincerest gratitude to Kate Brett and the Cambridge University Press editorial and production team, especially Kathleen Fearn, Abinaya Palanichamy, and Madhumathi Sivakumar, for putting so much care into my work.