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| Dušan Bogdanović |
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A richly gifted composer, improviser and guitarist, Dušan Bogdanović has explored musical languages which are reflected in his style today a unique synthesis of classical, jazz and ethnic music. As a soloist and in collaboration with other artists, Bogdanović has toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Japan and the United States. His performing and recording activities include work with chamber ensembles of diverse stylistic orientations: the De Falla Trio; harpsichord/guitar duo with Elaine Comparone; and jazz collaborations with James Newton, Milcho Leviev, Charlie Haden, Miroslav Tadic, Mark Nauseef, Anthony Cox, and others. Dušan Bogdanović's recording credits include several albums, on Intuition, Sony/Global Pacific, M.A Recordings, ESS.A.Y, Concord Records, GSP and other labels, ranging from Bach Trio Sonatas to contemporary works. His compositions are published by Doberman-Yppan, Canada, Berben Editions, Italy and Guitar Solo Publications in the US. Among his most recent commissions are a ballet-poeme Crow, premiered by the Pacific Dance Company and performed at the Los Angeles Theater Center; a sextet Sevdalinka, written for the Newman-Oltman guitar duo with the Turtle Island Quartet; Over the Edge, composed for the Lafayette Trio, as well as solo guitar works written for Alvaro Pierri, David Starobin, Eduardo Isaac, Scott Tennant and William Kanengiser.
Bogdanović was born in Yugoslavia in 1955. He completed his studies of composition and orchestration at the Geneva Conservatory with P. Wissmer and A. Ginastera and in guitar performance with Maria Livia São Marcos. Early in his career, he received the only First Prize at the Geneva Competition and gave a highly acclaimed debut recital in Carnegie Hall in 1977. He has taught at the Geneva Conservatory and the University of Southern California and is presently engaged by the San Francisco Conservatory.
His theoretical work includes Polyrhythmic and Polymetric Studies, as well as a bilingual publication covering three-voice counterpoint and Renaissance improvisation for guitar and with a structural analysis of motivic metamorphoses in composition and improvisation (Berben Editions). He has also collaborated on multi-disciplinary projects involving music, psychology, philosophy and fine arts.
As one would expect, this maverick presents himself here as a musical world-builder. He is at home in the most diverse ethnic milieus, which are perfectly matched by his musical knowledge. Dušan Bogdanović is a composer with an exuberant creativity and great power of originality. Gitarre & Laute, Germany, 1999
Profoundly original, the personality of Bogdanović dares to re- read the classics of the repertoire. It is simply that the palette of Bogdanović is immense: with colors, timbres, energies, nuances. Between the rustle of silk paper and the burst of machine gun, he knows how to do justice to the orchestral vocation of the guitar without taking away its intimate dimension of shared soliloquy. Tribune de Genève, Switzerland, 1984