PREMIL PETROVIĆ

Artistic Director & Conductor

Premil Petrović is initiator, chief conductor and artistic director of No Borders Orchestra. He studied conducting under Professor Winfried Müller at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin. He was awarded the Heinrich Böll scholarship as well as the prestigious scholarship “Musiktheater Heute” of the Akademie der Deutschen Bank, which enabled him to attend interpretation courses held by the leading conductors of today.

In 1996 Premil founded the music theater in Cinema REX – one of Belgrade’s most important, politically active venues during the 1990s. Premil is one of the leading personalities in the music scene of his native Serbia. He lives in Berlin, conducts different orchestras worldwide and appears on international festivals.

Premil’s repertoire includes historical interpretations of old music, classic-romantic operas and symphonic repertoire and numerous world premieres of contemporary music. He was awarded the First Hanns-Eisler-Award in Berlin for interpretation of contemporary music. He maintains a special relationship with the music of Isidora Žebeljan, one of the most famous Serbian contemporary composers. He has conducted premieres of her operas at the Bregenz Festival in Austria, Settimana Musicale – Summer Festival in Siena, Italy, at the Zagreb Music Biennale in Croatia etc. He has also recorded several releases of Žebeljan’s music.

Premil often conducts experimental music theater, like the production of Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” at Hau 1 in Berlin, directed by Bruce Labruce. For Bruce’s film by the same title, Premil recorded a new interpretation of Schoenberg’s music. The film premiered at the Berlinale 2014 and won a Teddy Award.

2014 he worked with director Brett Bailey on the new postcolonial production of Verdi/Cassol`s opera “Macbeth” in Cape Town, South Africa. Since 2014 the opera was performed on some of the most important festivals in Europe and received rave reviews on Wiener Festwochen in Vienna, Festival d´Automne in Paris, Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, Operadagen in Rotterdam, in Barbican in London, Kampnagel in Hamburg, Megaron in Athens, Lisbon, Brisbane Festival, Macao Arts Festival etc. Premil has conducted with Vancouver Opera, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Opera Philadelphia, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and various European orchestras.

His first recording with No Borders Orchestra is released for Universal Music/Deutsche Grammophon.