An Interview with Dragoslav Dević

Dimitrije O. Golemović

doi:10.5937/10.5937/newso2566003G

Dimitrije O. Golemović University of Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Department of Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5937/10.5937/newso2566003G

Keywords: Dragoslav Dević

Abstract

The conversation was recorded in 2011, to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Department of Ethnomusicology at the Faculty of Music.

Author Biography

Dimitrije O. Golemović, University of Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Department of Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology

(Belgrade, 1954) is an ethnomusicologist and composer. He studied ethnomusicology, composition, and solo singing at the Music Academy in Belgrade (now Faculty of Music), where he later earned both his Master’s and Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. From 1979 to 2019, he was employed at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade as a lecturer in ethnomusicology. He has conducted long-term research into traditional folk music in several hundred villages across Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and North Macedonia, collecting a substantial and valuable body of audio and video materials. He has published 125 scholarly works, including 15 books in the field of ethnomusicology, as well as 13 audio releases (two LP records and 11 compact discs). His books and CDs have been published by numerous institutions and publishers, including the Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Biblioteka XX vek, the Ethnological Library, Scarecrow Press, and the Ethnography Museum of Geneva. As a composer, he focused primarily on vocal music. In addition to approximately 40 choral works for children’s, women’s, and mixed choirs, as well as a number of solo songs, he is the author of works of sacred music (The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, the oratorios Hiram’s Covenant and In Search of Light), secular cantatas (Drina, O River… and Banat), and operas (The Boy Who Was Afraid of Nothing and The Wandering Little Frog). He composed the oratorios and operas to his own librettos. Golemović has also authored several literary works. He has published one novel (Three Short Novels), a collection of short stories for children (For Tijana, for a Good Night), a book of proverbs (The Mad Ox and Worms in the Cabbage), and a volume containing five plays for children (Woven of Dreams). He is the recipient of numerous awards for his scholarly and artistic work. Among the most notable are the Golden Beočug Award (2017), the Grand Plaque of the University of Arts (2018), and the Cultural Pattern Award (2019). He has also received the Ministry of Culture of Serbia Award for Outstanding Contribution to Culture (2022), the Mile Nedeljković Lifetime Achievement Charter (2023), and the Tihomir Đorđević Award for Exceptional Scholarly and Research Contributions in the fields of ethnology, folklore studies, and philology (2023).