The best music to listen to is the one full of joy, power, energy, music that is completely unrestrained, free, and limitless, shared Isidora Žebeljan in a 2020 interview, given just months before her untimely passing.

An evening in the animated and restless spirit of Serbia’s most important contemporary composer opens with her Dance of Wooden Sticks from 2008. The program continues with the world premiere of a new work commissioned by the Belgrade Philharmonic – Concerto for Horn and Orchestra written in homage to Žebeljan, performed by Stefan Dohr. The work draws on motifs from a horn concerto Žebeljan was commissioned to write but never completed. The composer is her former student, the young and gifted Veljko Nenadić, who won the prestigious Béla Bartók International Competition in 2022.

Rounding out the program is Robert Schumann’s sumptuous Symphony No. 4, conducted by Christian Reif.