Quartet Bilitis (Novi Sad/Serbia)

Quartet Bilitis

This not so typical chamber orchestra was founded based on a string quartet, but the first violin is replaced by a flute with a similar sound range. Their performance of the Grammy awarded piece “Different Trains”, written by the contemporary composer Steve Reich, and the video segment that accompanies it, is a true delicacy for all the fans of chamber music and new challenges in art.

Since 2014, the quartet’s members are Ksenija Bašić (flute), Iva Stanković (violin), Ana Klem Aksentijević (viola) and Milica Svirac (cello). They are all academically educated, awarded musicians; they are all members of the most eminent orchestras in Vojvodina and they all do work in the domain of pedagogy. Besides pieces for string quartet, they also perform compositions written specifically for their quartet. Since there is no other ensemble of this type in Serbia, they have the honor of presenting some of the most famous pieces of chamber music in a new and creative way, especially music pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Steve Reich is an American composer of Jewish origin, born in 1936. He spent his childhood mostly making train journeys between New York and L.A., visiting his divorced parents. Later, he listened about some other, European trains which transported Jews to the concentration camps during the Second World War. All that inspired him to compose his most famous piece “Different Trains”, in 1988.

Quartet Bilitis has chosen to accompany this composition with a video work by the graphic designer Ivana Radmanovac. Judging from everything, their performance in Gradić will be an ideal opportunity for a perfect neoclassical evening in an ambiance that seems to have been made for such spectacles.