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International conference
28–30 May 2026
Установа културе “Пароброд”/ Cultural Center Parobrod
Belgrade, Serbia
Organized by Emory University (Atlanta, USA), Cultural Center Parobrod (Belgrade, Serbia), and The Faculty of Media and Communications (Belgrade, Serbia)
Sponsored by Emory University Initiative for Arts and Humanistic Inquiry
Lecture Recitals
Dialogue within a Void, Fantasy within a Nightmare: Minimalistic Viola Sonatas at the Fall of Communism
28 May 2026 at 2:00 PM
Установа културе “Пароброд”/ Cultural Center Parobrod
Kapetan-Mišina 6a, Belgrade, Serbia
Vladimir Ryabov (b. 1950) Sonata-Dialogue for viola and piano (1987) 20’
Georgy Firtich (1938–2016) Sonata-Fantasy for viola and piano (1988) 20’
Netanel Pollak, viola
Sophie Greis-Pollak, piano
The following program presents two sonatas for viola and piano that were written in the USSR during the last decade before the fall of communism. Even though the anticipated winds of change were evident in Soviet art and everyday life—with increasing Western influence and first signs of commercialism—the 1980s are remembered as a decade of deficit, hunger, crime, and distress. In music, late Soviet composers employed minimalistic devices such as repetitiveness or excessive use of silence to reflect on feelings of impasse and emptiness, respectively. The two sonatas in this program illustrate the use of these devices, combined with musical elements inspired by Western popular music and Orthodox liturgy.
Resonant Identities: Sound, Memory, and Harmonic Frequencies
29 May 2026 at 2:00 PM
Установа културе “Пароброд”/ Cultural Center Parobrod
In this lecture-recital, composer and pianist Duke Bojadziev reflects on personal and cultural transformation through sound. Born in Yugoslavia and coming of age during the final years of the socialist federation, Bojadziev experienced firsthand the profound social and psychological shifts that followed the political changes of the early 1990s. The program combines piano performance, subtle electronic textures, and spoken reflection. Through a selection of original compositions and guided improvisations, Bojadziev explores sound as a medium of memory, identity, and continuity. The presentation also introduces Harmonic Frequencies, an ongoing artistic research project developed over many years through Bojadziev’s exploration of sound healing, vibrational resonance, and the psychological impact of music and visual environments. Rather than presenting sound therapeutically, the project approaches frequency and resonance as compositional tools that shape emotional and perceptual experience. Drawing on musical influences from the Balkan region alongside contemporary sonic practices, the recital invites listeners into an immersive space where personal history, cultural memory, and acoustic resonance intersect. The presentation will be interwoven with brief spoken reflections, creating a unified lecture-recital experience rather than a conventional concert format.
Conference Keynote Speakers
Kevin C. Karnes
(Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
Melita Milin
(Institute of Musicology, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia)
Peter Schmelz
(Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA)
Martha Sprigge
(University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)
Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman
(Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade)
Daily Program
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2026
8:00–8:40 Registration (Piano Hall)
8:40–9:00 Introductory Note: Laura Emmery, Marija Pavlović, Žarko Cvejić (Parobrod Theatre)
9:00–10:30 Session 1
Session 1A: Post-Communist Eastern European Identity and Cultural Resistance (Annex 1)
Chair: Ivana Medić (Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia)
9:00–9:30 “Urban Strategies of Resistance in Serbian Rock Discography of 1991” Srđan Teparić (Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia)
9:30–10:00 “Science Fiction Films in the Eastern Bloc: International Cooperation, Forgotten History” Jan Topolski (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń / The Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, Poland)
10:00–10:30 “The Fall of Communism in the Historiography of New Music” Ian Pace (City St George’s, University of London, UK)
Session 1B: Russification and Sovietization in the Ukrainian Art Music Scene:
Post-1991 Perspectives (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Peter J. Schmelz (Johns Hopkins University, USA)
9:00–9:30 “Colonialism’s Nuances: A View of Nikolai Roslavets and Soviet Kharkiv after 1991” Leah Batstone (Montclair State University, USA)
9:30–10:00 “Ideological Compromise as a Strategy of Artistic Survival in the 1920s Soviet Ukraine: The Case of the Mykola Leontovych Music Society” Iryna Tukova (National Music Academy of Ukraine)
10:00–10:30 “Sovietization as Colonization: A Striking Case of Western Ukraine” Lidiya Melnyk (Mykola Lysenko Lviv National Music Academy, Ukraine)
Session 1C: Transitions after 1991 (Annex 2)
Chair: Ivana Miladinović Prica (Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia)
9:00–9:30 “Defining Aesthetic Landmarks in Latvian Art Music after 1991: Local Experience of Post-Occupation, Post-Soviet, and Bygone Postmodernism” Jānis Kudiņš (Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, Latvia)
9:30–10:00 “Opera Without a Home: Interim Transitions in Latvia, 1991–1995” Lauma Mellēna-Bartkevica (Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music)
10:00–10:30 “Creative and Professional Constraints in the Context of Socio-Political Shifts: Composer Miroslav ‘Miša’ Savić” Blanka Bogunović & Nikola Dedić (Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia)
10:30–11:00 Break (Piano Hall)
11:00–12:00 Keynote 1 (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Laura Emmery (Emory University, USA)
Melita Milin (Institute of Musicology, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Serbia)
“Serbian Music Under Late Socialism, the Breakup of Yugoslavia, and Imposed Isolation: Continuities and Disruptions (1989–1999)”
12:00–2:00 Lunch
2:00–3:00 Lecture Recital (Piano Hall)
"Dialogue within a Void, Fantasy within a Nightmare: Minimalistic Viola Sonatas at the Fall of Communism” Netanel Pollak (viola), Sophie Greis-Pollak (piano)
3:00–4:30 Session 2
Session 2A: Music Festivals and Cultural Diplomacy (Annex 1)
Chair: Žarko Cvejić (Faculty of Media and Communications, Belgrade, Serbia)
3:00–3:30 "Reimagining Bulgarian New Music through Darmstadt: Cultural Diplomacy, Mobility, and Post-Communist Reintegration” Joevan de Mattos Caitano (Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar Detmold, Germany)
3:30–4:00 "Finland and Her Neighbors’: From Neutrality to Nationalism at the 1992 Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival” Nathan Cobb (Emory University, USA)
4:00–4:30 “Audio-Visual Representation of Transition: Reflections of Socio-Political Changes in Popular Music at the End of the Communist Era (1989–1991) Marko Aleksić (Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia)
Session 2B: Cultural Heritage and National Identity (Annex 2)
Chair: Jelena Novak (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal)
3:00–3:30 “Lithuanian Music after 1990: From Post-Soviet Condition to the Regime of Presentism” Rūta Stanevičiūtė (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Lithuania)
3:30–4:00 “The Impact of the Fall of Communism on Ukrainian Music” Olha Kushniruk (University of Cambridge, Faculty of Music, UK)
4:00–4:30 “From Ideology to Identity: Romanian Children’s Choral Music in the Post-Communist Era” Natalia Spân (National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima,” Romania)
Session 2C: Music and Narrativity in Post-Soviet and Post-Communist Metal and Popular Music (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Srđan Teparić (Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia)
3:00–3:30 “Latvian Soviet-era Popular Music in the Memories of its Performers” Reinis Jaunais & Kaspars Zellis (University of Latvia)
3:30–4:00 “Religion, Nationalism, and Aesthetics: What is ‘Pagan’ about the Latvian Pagan Metal Band Skyforger?” Agita Misāne & Jānis Daugavietis (University of Latvia)
4:00–4:30 “Eti igry ne dla nas’: Playing Metal Music ‘Right’ in (Post-)Soviet Russia” Dawn Hazle (Independent researcher, Nottingham, UK)
4:30–5:00 Break
5:00–6:00 Keynote 2 (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Pauline Fairclough (University of Bristol, UK)
Peter Schmelz (Johns Hopkins University, USA)
“No Freedom without Constraint, No Constraint without Freedom: Soviet Experimental Music before and after the Fall”
8:00–9:00 Concert: Serbian Composers in the Diaspora (Piano Hall)
Vladimir Milošević (piano), Nataša Penezić (piano), Sofija Prica (piano), Nemanja Stanković (cello)
9:00–12:00 DJ session with Oggie B (Ognjen Bogdanović) "40 Years of House (Music)”
FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2026
8:00–9:00 Registration coffee (Piano Hall)
9:00–10:30 Session 3
Session 3A: Jazz Influences (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Nathan Cobb (Emory University, USA)
9:00–9:30 “Jazz Ongheya’: Mediated Reception of Jazz in North Korea’s ‘National Music” Chaeyoung Lee (Korea Institute, Harvard University, USA)
9:30–10:00 “Navigating Eventful Social Change: Adaptive Strategies of Estonian Jazz Musicians in the Early 1990s” Heli Reimann (Tallinn University, Estonia)
10:00–10:30 "Istorija Vizantije [The History of Byzantium] by Miloš Petrović: Searching for the (Trans)national Music Identity” Jelena Janković-Beguš (Independent researcher, Belgrade, Serbia)
Session 3B: “Foreign” Influences (Annex 1)
Chair: Jan Topolski (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland)
9:00–9:30 "Pursuing Originality by Articulating Russki: Tree of Life’s 1997 Album Prophetic Dream and the Post-Soviet Dialectic of Cultural Identity and Foreign Influence” John Vandevert (Uppsala University, Sweden)
9:30–10:00 “Somebody That I Used to Know: Interruption and Gradual Re-establishment of the Foreign Pop Music Concert Scene in Post-1991 Serbia” Nikola Komatović (Independent researcher, Belgrade, Serbia)
10:00–10:30 "Of Falling Walls, Orchestras, and Swimming Pools” Chris Walton (Hochschule der Künste Bern, Switzerland)
Session 3C: Post-Soviet Decolonization and National Identity (Annex 2)
Chair: Christoph Schuller (University of Music and Theatre Munich, Germany)
9:00–9:30 “Sounding the Steppe: Ethnographies of Musical Heritage and Political Belonging in Contemporary Hungary” Indira Anna Hajnács (University of Szeged, Hungary / Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, Germany)
9:30–10:00 “GDR, Instrument Making, FRG: Markneukirchen before and after 1990” Ya'qub Yonas N. El-Khaled (University of Music and Theatre Munich, Germany)
10:00–10:30 “Decolonizing Georgian Music History: Georgian Music of Antiquity in Post-Soviet Musicological Discourse” Gvantsa Ghvinjilia (Tbilisi State Conservatoire, Georgia)
10:30–11:00 Break (Piano Hall)
11:00–12:00 Keynote 3 (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Reinis Jaunais (University of Latvia)
“‘The Spirit of the Time, the Atmosphere of Place’: Hardijs Lediņš in (West) Berlin, 1988/92’ Kevin C. Karnes (Emory University, Atlanta, USA)
12:00–2:00 Lunch
2:00–3:00 Lecture Recital (Piano Hall)
Duke Bojadziev (piano and electronics)
3:00–3:30 Break
3:30–4:30 Session 4
Session 4A: Musicology and Scholarship after the Fall (Annex 1)
Chair: Nevena Stanić (Northwestern University, USA)
3:30–4:00 “1991 as a Milestone in Athenian Musical Life: Intersections of Scholarship and Performance” Magdalini Kalopana (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece)
4:00–4:30 “Soundtracking the Fall: Autotheory of Becoming a Musicologist after the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” Jelena Novak (CESEM, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal)
Session 4B: Post-Yugoslav Cultural Policies in Serbia (Annex 2)
Chair: Jelena Janković-Beguš (Independent researcher, Belgrade, Serbia)
3:30–4:00 “Musical Landscape in Flux: The Founding of the International Review of Composers Amidst Yugoslav Disintegration” Ivana Miladinović Prica (Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia)
4:00–4:30 “Cultural Policy and Musical Life in Serbia in the ‘Year of Culture’ (1995) and Its Operatic Reflection” Tatjana Marković (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria)
Session 4C: Post-Soviet Musical Reckonings (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Inessa Bazayev (Louisiana State University, USA)
3:30–4:00 “Post-Soviet Hauntology and the Music of Sofia Gubaidulina” Christopher Segall (University of Cincinnati, USA)
4:00–4:30 “Sacred Sound in a Post-Atheist World” Christine Tokatlian (The American College of Greece, Athens, Greece)
4:30–5:00 Break
5:00–6:00 Keynote 4 (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Chris Walton (Bern Academy of the Arts, Switzerland)
Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman (Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia)
“Stereotypes and Paradoxes as Indicators of the Position of Serbian Music in the Time of Transition—Creation, Interpretation, Manipulation”
8:00–9:00 Concert: Patterns and Stitches (Cultural Center Guarnerius, Džordža Vašingtona 12, Belgrade, Serbia) Ensemble for Different New Music
SATURDAY, MAY 30, 2026
8:00–9:00 Registration (Piano Hall)
9:00–10:30 Session 5
Session 5A: Cultural Memory and Ruptured Identities (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Nikola Komatović (Independent researcher, Belgrade, Serbia)
9:00–9:30 “The Secret History of Events’: Musical Commemoration of 1956 in Hungary—The Formation and Exhaustion of Ritual Repertoire (1989–1992)” Ákos Windhager (Hungarian Academy of Arts, Hungary)
9:30–10:00 “Stop the War in the Name of Children: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991–1992)” Ivana Polić (Florida State University, USA)
10:00–10:30 "Echoes of Past and Present: Ruth Schonthal’s The Bells of Sarajevo as a Transhistorical Reflection on the Yugoslav Wars” Christoph Schuller (University of Music and Theatre Munich, Germany)
Session 5B: Isolation, Turmoil, and War Trauma (Annex 1)
Chair: Iryna Tukova (National Music Academy of Ukraine)
9:00–9:30 “Milica Paranosić’s Reading of Tèa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife” Aleksandra Vojčić (University of Michigan, USA)
9:30–10:00 “Goran Kapetanović and the Art of Disintegration” Ivana Medić (Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Serbia)
10:00–10:30 “Sacred Sound at the End of the Cold War: Arvo Pärt’s Miserere between East and West (1989–1991)” Nevena Stanić (Northwestern University, USA)
Session 5C: Ruptured Identities (Annex 2)
Chair: Miloš Bralović (Institute of Musicology, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Serbia)
9:00–9:30 “Bulgarian Folk Music: From Socialist Standardization to Post-Socialist Transnational Circulation” Kateryna Ielysieieva (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria)
9:30–10:00 “Ruptured Identities: Continuity and Change in the Musical Construction of Gender after the Fall of Yugoslav Socialism” Claudia Mayr-Veselinović (Technical University of Leoben, Austria)
10:00–10:30 “The ‘Last Soviet Generation’: Nino Davadze, Kaisa Ling, and Musical Representations of Soviet Legacies in 21st-Century Georgia and Estonia” Allison Brooks-Conrad (Haverford College / University of Delaware, US)
10:30–11:00 Break (Piano Hall)
11:00–12:00 Session 6
Session 6A: Georgian Art Music (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Rūta Stanevičiūtė (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Lithuania)
11:00–11:30 "After the Fall, Before the Future: Georgian Art Music and the Tempo-Localities of 1991–2003” Nana Sharikadze (Caucasus University, Georgia)
11:30–12:00 “Georgian Opera in Transition: The Search for the New Identity and the Political Context of 1991” Maia Sigua (Tbilisi State Conservatoire, Georgia)
Session 6B: National Narratives (Annex 2)
Chair: Indira Anna Hajnács (University of Szeged, Hungary / Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, Germany)
11:00–11:30 “Censoring Contemporary Music: Soviet Writings on Prokofiev’s Music” Inessa Bazayev (Louisiana State University, USA)
11:30–12:00 “The Specificity of the National Narrative in Eastern Europe: The Case of Hungarian Musicology” Andrea Olah (Independent researcher, Vienna, Austria)
12:00–12:30 Break (Piano Hall)
12:30–1:30 Keynote 5 (Parobrod Theatre)
Chair: Christopher Segall (University of Cincinnati, USA)
Martha Sprigge (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)
“The Memory Keepers: Composers’ Widows and the Remains of the East German Avant-Garde”
