Isidora Zebeljan (1967-)
Quatuor à cordes "Polomka"
"Dance of the wooden sticks", pour cor et quintette à cordes
"New songs for Lada", pour soprano et quatuor à cordes
Sarabande pour piano
"A Yawl on the Danube", scène pour soprano, piano, quatuor à cordes et percussion
"Song of a Traveler in the Night", pour clarinette et quatuor à cordes
"Pep it up", fantaisie pour soprano, piano, quintette à cordes et percussion

Aneta Ilic, soprano
Stefan Dohr, cor
Joan Enric Lluna, clarinette
Isidora Zbeljan, piano
Miroslav Karlovic, percussion
Boban Stosic, contrebasse
Quatuor Brodsky
Premil Petrovic, direction

Cette musique contemporaine exigeante et stimulante s'adresse davantage à l'intellect qu'aux émotions. La richesse et la variété des thèmes nous permet de découvrir des horizons nouveaux. Il s'agit là de musique de chambre, mais la « Dance of the wooden sticks » est une symphonie miniature ! Les accords évoquant le jazz s'enchevêtrent aux airs populaires distordus. Janacek et Webern sont aussi parfois conviés. Musique dense et éthérée à la fois, elle engendre une certaine tension suivie d'une apaisante sérénité qui captive l'auditeur. Si parfois isidora zebeljan nous propose une œuvre calme de pure beauté : la « Sarabande » pour piano ; le plus souvent les morceaux alternent le paisible et l'impétueux. Dans « Pet it up », les douces vocalises de la soprano rafraîchissent d'autant plus qu'elles succèdent au piano martelé. A certaines époques, la musique de chambre pianotait sur les roses des jardins. Aujourd'hui, la brume engloutit les friches industrielles. Interprétation impeccable. Pour auditeurs curieux avides de nouvelles esthétiques. (Christophe Marthiens)

Brodsky Quartet & Isidora Žebeljan Isidora Žebeljan currently ranks as one of Serbia’s most successful composers. She gained international notice with her opera Zora D. composed as a commissioned work for London’s Genesis Foundation. Numerous commissions from renowned ensembles, institutions, and festivals have followed, and with her more than thirty scores for the leading Serbian, Croatian, and Montenegrin theaters she has also established herself as a stage composer. Moreover, she has contributed to the production of numerous soundtracks. Isidora Žebeljan maintains a very special relationship with the Brodsky Quartet, which has performed her ensemble oeuvre in its entirety. She has composed some pieces especially for this ensemble, which on the present recording also fulfills an outstanding function. For Isidora Žebeljan the folk music tradition naturally forms a central point of departure from which, however, she goes on to create a musical world all of her own. Her new and unique personal form of expression is reflected in works such as the Polomka Quartet or the Lada Songs. The polomka is one of the most popular dances in eastern Serbia. The quartet was inspired by the impressions gathered by the composer as a spectator. She transformed these impressions into the idea of the dance of an imaginary people in a region removed from the real world. She composed the New Songs of Lada (2006-11) after verses by anonymous Vojvodina poets contained in the anthology Urban Serbian Poetry of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. Lada is the old Slavic deity of love and the spring. »Always highly suspenseful. An artist full of thrilling inventions« (klassik-heute.com of our first Žebeljan release: CD …….).