Let’s Get To Know Each Other

I am delighted you stopped by my little corner on the web. If you care to know how I ended up being a classical music producer and loving it, this is my brief background story.

The Origins

I was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia and without moving from the same address until I was in my early twenties, I changed my country and nationality four times. This is what happens when you live in a country torn by wars and civil unrest. 

As a kid, you naturally do not know of any other reality than the one you are living in, as you are generally focused on exploring the world, getting good grades and not embracing your parents.

Next to the regular school, I was enrolled in a prestigious music school at age 8 to study violin. This, my friends, was not your ordinary ‘one-lesson-a-week’ affair. It was a school where you went six days a week after your regular school. The schedule was gruesome and I was expected to excel. I loved playing violin, loved all our orchestra sessions and music history but detested theory and writing three-voiced fugues. 

After six years I was at the precipice of enrolling in a gymnasium and tolling with the idea if I should give up on violin altogether. Then quite out of the blue, my solfège teacher suggested I should look into studying opera singing. I never found out if she really did hear something special or was it a way for her to extend kindness to an anxious teenager, but that comment has set me up for an entirely different life. After six years, I have put my violin in its case where it still remains after more than 20 years. 

Rossini in the Trenches

Shortly thereafter, I went to see my first opera live in the National Theater in Belgrade. The circumstances were film-worthy. It was a legendary staging of Il barbiere di Seviglia with a superb cast who obviously was having as much fun on stage as the audience in the chocked-full theater hall. The background setting was the illegal NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the show went on during the air raid. Yes, you read that correctly - while the bombs were falling, both artists and the audience were at the theater together singing and laughing for their life. 

I saw then and there the actual proof of how empty life could be without art. If music truly had the power to uplift and transform lives, I realized that is what I wanted to do. Still, as I unfortunately see to this day, arts are generally not considered a genuine profession and are often treated by our families as a fanciful hobby. Something beautiful you do next to your ‘real job’ mostly for social clout. 

I was miserable at high school and the only thing that made me through were regular scientific and research seminars I attended at the Petnica Science Center. Even though I persisted in studying opera singing, I still went to the university in order to get a proper degree. I have no regrets of doing so and I spent ten years of my life in archaeology, traveling for digs and surveys, working as an assistant on pottery studies, writing and editing research papers, mentoring younger students and making life-long friendships. 

However, throughout all that time the opera bug would not let me go. After a few years of taking lessons from a teacher who was outwardly renowned and lauded but in effect was totally clueless, unhelpful and misogynistic, I quickly realized he was an utter fraud but decided to stick it out in order to get a degree from the school. That is when my double life in music began. Since I was by then trained in research, I marched myself to the library and started borrowing volumes of sheet music no one in my surroundings has ever heard of and that was even never been performed live in Serbia. Many of these volumes have been more than fifty years old and quite a few have obviously never been opened. The librarian actually told me once how I was the first singing student to borrow sheet music in twenty years since she has been on the job. 

By studying the passages of Händel’s oratorios and Rossini’s operas and listening to the pirated CD’s of Cecilia Bartoli and Emma Kirkby I have finally found my real voice and my repertoire. For several years I continued to prepare what was expected of me for my lessons but went back home to study Rossini on my own. Eventually, I found a kind, private teacher in another city who supported me and gave me the opportunity to perform the music I liked the most and that suited me the best. 

I doubled down on every opportunity to perform, organized concerts on my own and for three years was auditioning at several music academies, but kept getting turned down. At a certain point after ten years I was completely exhausted and decided to drop everything and focus on preparing for the SAT test and emigrating to the USA to further pursue Master studies in museology. Three months have passed since I made tat decision, my scores have been shoved to the back of my library and my schedule was full with already booked archaeological excavations for months in advance when two letters came in the post inviting me to come for the auditions at the conservatories in Amsterdam and Utrecht in the Netherlands. 

I was completely surprised. I totally forgot that I even applied. That application happened as a happy accident after I was chatting on Skype (remember that?) with a friend who has heard that Utrecht has a whole department dedicated to baroque music. What a dream! In Serbia even today, if you do not sing Puccini or Verdi, you might as well not exist. 

Going Abroad

As what I at that time considered to be the final act of my musical career that was ending before it even started, I decided to go and give it a shot. More as a farewell journey than an actual attempt at succeeding. But I did and was admitted to both schools right away, on the spot. I had exactly three months to get the tuition money and a visa. My family made a major sacrifice that still was only enough to get me through the first six months in a foreign country where I did not know and could not understand anyone. 

I packed my two bags and left full of optimism, but the reality of life would soon kick in. Still, one major thing happened that would keep me going through the most horrific times when I was broke, homeless and utterly destitute and that was my vocal teacher Charlotte Margiono. Finally I have found my match. Someone who had an amazing career, was a top artist and more importantly, someone who was able to share her immense knowledge in a way that was genuinely helpful. Next to that, she had a personality to hoot!

Most music academies and conservatories are by their very nature international schools. Which basically means that on the surface no one is seen as different or particularly worthy of any special treatment. We are all in the same boat trying to move along even though some are vastly more privileged than others when it comes to connections, cultural background, living arrangements or financial situation. 

Being quite young I refused to be defeated and believed I can still carve out my niche regardless of anything or anyone. Yes, there were a lot of jobs I did that we all love to hate but are forced to take in order to survive. Waitressing, cleaning, selling, teaching, modeling, working as a receptionist.... You name it. I even made and sold my own cold process soap, bath bombs and lip balms for ten years. However, parallel to all that I also was eager to take on any kind of work that had to do with production and organization of concerts. From researching and writing program notes, to making schedules and moving pianos on stage. 

From Performer to Producer

What I loved the most about production is the fact that I finally felt an artist absolutely can be in charge of her own destiny and purposely steer the ship of her own career. The reason I was so fired up was because I could see in real time how conscious effort and thorough planning will always produce desired effects. Indeed, I went so far that I even co-produced (and sung!) two chamber operas with a colleague entirely from scratch and used the experience for my Masters degree research. 

Little by little, fellow colleagues started approaching me to ask for help. Eventually I started tempig as a producer at the Utrechts Conservatory and when the opportunity came to become a permanent member of the team, I took it and never looked back. In the last fifteen years I produced and programmed over a thousand concerts, events and performances of every kind in the field of classical music. From one-man-shows for an audience of 2 members, to 200-men choir-orchestra-soloists at sold out venues with thousands of seats. I work with young musicians and seasoned professionals every day and I love every minute of it!

Backstage and Beyond Stage

I sometimes get asked if I miss performing and the truth is I do not. I still love and sing my favorites from Bel Canto repertoire and late baroque operas, but I do it for fun. And you can still see me on stage, preparing and fixing everything for performers. I get to listen them, book them, follow them, help and support them and watch them shine, grow and triumph. 

As it usually happens in life, it is only when we look back that we are able to connect the dots and realize how the choices we made have inevitably brought us to the place we are. Call it serendipity, karma or destiny, but I now know that:

• Were it not for me playing violin for six years, my teacher would not have encouraged me to study opera singing. 

• Were it not for that hilariously amazing performance of Il Barbiere, I would not have gotten hooked on opera.

• Were it not for my miserable high school experience, I would have not stuck to the music school. 

• Were it not for that one passing chat with a friend whom I did not see for several years, I would not have ended up studying in the Netherlands. 

• Were it not for my great research mentor at Petnica, I never would have know how to write, formulate scientific hypothesis and follow deductive and inductive logic.

• Were it not for my time at the University, I would have not learned how to articulate my ideas, conduct research and present valuable findings.

• Were it not for my bad singing teacher, I would have never discovered the repertoire that truly suits me. 

• Were it not for my amazing singing teacher in Utrecht, I would never have been even motivated to organize concerts just to be able to sing the music I loved the most. 

• Were it not for the fact I was a foreigner who was not given a chance by anybody in the business, I would never have tried at producing my own shows.

I have been through a lot and through all the ups and downs, suffering and successes managed to find my true calling. This place is my corner where I share everything I know. The nature of my job is that I almost daily get asked for help ranging from tips for audition arias to setting up a Crowdfund campaign.

A Producer is the veritable Jack of All Trades of the XXI century. You do not have to become a full-time one like I did, but on this site you will find genuine, accurate, accessible and actionable content that will help you resolve a particular dilemma, guide you through a specific situation, inspire and encourage you to take your artistic career unapologetically in your own hands.