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.
Program:
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition (aranžman Tušmalov-Šefer) – excerpt
The Gnome
The Old Castle
Igor Stravinsky
Scene No. 3 from Ballet Petrushka (arr. by composer)
Antonín Dvořák
2 Slavonic Dances
Camille Saint-Saëns
Music for movie La Mort du duc de Guise (arr. for piano 4 hands: Nikolajević – Kršić)
Ivan Jevtić
Con moto
Vera Milanković
Senjačka rapsodija
Zoran Hristić
Rufurija
Biography:
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. They 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 jury members at national and international competitions. The Association 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.