Biography of Piano duo Snežana Nikolajević and Vesna Kršić
Vesna Kršić, music theoretician and pianist and Snežana Nikolajević, musicologist and pianist, have been playing together as a piano duo for a very long time: they had their first performance in 1968 while being the students at the Belgrade Academy of Music and since their first recital in 1969 they have been continually on the stage. Тhey perform both on two pianos, and one piano four hands, with intense activity. respectively. Their impressive repertoire includes a great variety of compositions from different periods and styles, from the early baroque music up to the contemporary pieces - which could be seen in the list of their repertoire. On their numerous concerts they also reveal the new compositions created for this ensemble – a lot of these pieces are dedicated to them - and introduce new forms of presentation and contacts with the audience. They have done many editorial alterations of pieces for piano duo, have taken part in many conferences about literature for piano duo and its interpretation and have written a lot of articles about piano duo pieces as well as about specifics of piano duo performing.
They have performed numerous recitals and aslo concerts with orchestras in Belgrade and many other cities of Serbia, in former yugoslav republics ( Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro), also in France, Hungary, Israel, Rumania and the USA. They were often recording for radio and TV, and have also been јury members at national and international competitions. The Аssociation of Concert Artists of Serbia awarded the Piano duo Snežana Nikolajević - Vesna Kršić for the best concert of the year 2009. Recordings of their performances are being available on one LP and four CD’s edited by PGP RTS, Faculty of Music and SOKOJ.
Along with playing in the piano duo they have got their own professional ways – Vesna Kršić, MA of music theory, teaching as a professor at the Faculty of Music and Snežana Nikolajevic, PhD in musicology, as an editor at the Belgrade Television and lecturing as a professor at the Faculty of Philology and Arts. Working in these areas they both took part in many national and international conferences, published a lot of books, monographs and professional and scientific articles and studies.
Snežana Nikolajević (Belgrade, 1948), musicologist, pianist, music critic, unversity professor, streaming from one of the oldest renown Belgrade families, in which, more than a century, there was obvious the inclination for science and art on the highest level. She studied at the Music Academy in Belgrade at the three Departments - piano, musicology and solo singing - and has got her Ph.D. at the Belgrade Faculty of Music (Department of Musicology) with the thesis Television as a creative and interpretative field of Serbian music.
Since 1979 she has been the editor at the Belgrade Television. Her editor's handwriting and signature bear a lot of series - The Birth of Serbian Music Culture, Music Writing, My Music Experience, My Music, The Pianist, Why do you love Chopin, The Summer Academy of Sacred Music, The World Premiere and the very prestigious and popular serials Saturday Evening and Sunday Evening, which has been continually on the schedule since l990 until 2016, as well as many other individual projects.
Snežana Nikolajević is very active in the area of musicology having published seven books so far - The Companion through Chamber Music, Classics of Modern Music, Procedure in librettos writing applied by Petar Konjović. Piano duo as a Reflection of general music evolution, Music as an Event, The Serbian Music Screen and Music and Television - Skill and / or Art – and she has also written over a 1000 music reviews and articles in the Belgrade daily newspapers and special music magazines. She also took part in many symposiums, mainly focused on the topics emerging from the field of music in media.
For more than 45 years she has been playing in the piano duo with Mrs. Vesna Kršić, performing both on two pianos and one piano four hands with the same intensive activity and giving many concerts – playing recitals and, also, with orchestra - in many cities in Serbia and former Yugoslavia, as well as in Hungary, France, Israel, Rumania and the USA. The details about this activity can be found in the section CV of Piano duo.
Snežana Nikolajević has had a long experience as a member of the jury in a number of piano duo and TV competitions (The International Jeunesses Musicales Competition in Belgrade, Music Competition of the ARD in Munich, The international TV competition Prix Italia).
Since 2005 Snežana Nikolajević has been lecturing Media Music Forms and Music Visualisation as the full time Professor at the Faculty of Philology and Arts in Kragujevac, Department of Music in the Media, introduced and founded on the basis of her project, also teaching the subject Music and Media at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade.
Vesna Kršić Sekulić (Belgrade, 1950), music theoretician, pedagogue, pianist and violist, graduated from the Piano section and Music theory at the Belgrade Faculty of Music, and has got her MA in Music pedagogue. She was a professor of the piano and the chamber music in the Music school Josip Slavenski in Belgrade. Since 1976. she has has been teaching solfeggio and methods as a full time professor at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade and also at the Faculty of Philologhy and Art in Kragujevac. In her class, up to now, 25 students graduated there and now 5 already outstanding young music pedagogues got their M.A. Beside her activity playing in piano duo, Vesna Kršić is also performing as piano accompanist. For several years she was the member – as a violist - of Academic Chamber Orchestra Dušan Skovran.
She is giving more than 40 lectures for the teachers of solfeggio, piano and chamber music. She also she wrote several books in this field.
Vesna Kršić regularly takes part in a number of simposiums. A lot of her articals abut music were published in magazines. As a jury member and also as the President of the Assotiation of Music pedagogues of Serbia, she initiated the foundation of the Spring festival of Chamber Music in Belgrade, the Tournament of Music Skills and the Parada in Solfeggio. Vesna Kršić was the representative of Serbia in EMCY ( European Music Competitions of Youth).
She performed in all the main cities of former Yugoslavia, France, Hungary, Israel, USA, Switzerland, and Belgium in recitals and in the radio and television programs. The piano duo Vesna Kršić - Snežana Nikolajević received the award of the Association of Music Artists of Serbia for the best concert held in 2010. Recordings of thereduo interpretations were published on several LP records and CDs.