Aleksandra Vrebalov

ALEKSANDRA VREBALOV moved to the United States from her native Serbia in 1995. She has had her works performed by Kronos Quartet, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, clarinetists David Krakauer and David Griffiths, ETHEL and Momenta Quartets, guitarist Jorge Caballero, National Opera of Serbian National Theater, and Belgrade Philharmonic, among others. Vrebalov has written or arranged nine works for Kronos Quartet.

Vrebalov has received numerous commissions from institutions and ensembles that include Carnegie Hall, Fromm Foundation, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Kronos Quartet, Dusan Tynek Dance Theater, ASCAP, Barlow Endowment, Clarice Smith Center, and Merkin Hall.

Festivals featuring Vrebalov’s work include Edinburgh International Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, BBC Proms, Ravinia, Interzone, and Bemus.

Vrebalov has held residences at the American Opera Projects and American Lyric Theater, Rockefeller Bellagio Center, MacDowell Colony, New York’s New Dramatists, Tanglewood, and most recently at the Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program.

Named 2011 Composer of the Year by Muzika Klasika (for Mileva, an opera commissioned by the Serbian National Theater for its 150th anniversary season), Vrebalov has received awards from American Academy of Arts and Letters, Vienna Modern Masters, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, MAP Fund, Douglas Moore Foundation and two Mokranjac Awards given by Serbian Association of Composers for best work premiered in the country in 2010 and 2012.

Her works have been released on Nonesuch, Centaur Records, Innova, and Vienna Modern Masters labels, and choreographed by Dusan Tynek (NYC), Rambert Dance Company (UK), Take Dance (NYC), Scottish Dance Theater, and Providence Festival Ballet.

Vrebalov's music has been used in two films about atrocities of war: Soul Murmur directed by Helen Doyle (Canada) and Slucaj Kepiro by Natasa Krstic (Serbia), and her latest work for Kronos Quartet, Beyond Zero, with a film by Bill Morrison, was written in commemoration of the World War One centennial.