Concert programme inspired by the local heritage of the Western Balkans

As part of the 74^th Dubrovnik Summer Festival music programme, on 19 July and 20 July, two #synergy Festival Tour concerts will be held in the Rector’s Palace atrium at 9:30 p.m., where new compositions written for this occasion by young regional composers, inspired by the local heritage of the Western Balkans and European values, will be performed. Admission to both concerts is free.

For classical music to thrive and not merely survive, it is necessary to create new works. However, in the Western Balkans, actual instances of commissioning classical music and overall opportunities for composers to work are very rare and insufficiently developed. With the aim of balancing the aforementioned and encouraging the production and creation of classical music, the #synergy project was launched to enrich the classical repertoire through commissioning new works inspired by the project partners’ unique local culture and heritage. The works that will be heard during the two concert evenings in the Palace were written by young composers, twelve of them from six countries: Milivoje Pićurić, Ardian Halimi, Nina Perović, Matija Krečić, Krešnik Aliçkaj, Timotej Kosovinc, Mira Milosavljević, Predrag Radisavljević, Kris Sopiqoti, Tomislav Oliver, Jetmir Zaganjori and Helena Skljarov. Performing them are young, promising musicians, selected by the expert jury of the project partners’ representatives.

The project #synergy: Sharpening the capacities of the classical music industry in the Western Balkans is co-financed by the EU Creative Europe programme and brings together six important festivals from the region: KotorArt Don Branko's Days of Music (Montenegro), Dubrovnik Summer Festival (Croatia), Belgrade Festival Center (Serbia), Ljubljana Festival (Slovenia), Vox Baroque (Albania) and Chopin Piano Fest (Kosovo).