ABOUT

Belma Bešlić-Gál (b. 1978 in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) is a composer, pianist, and curator based in Vienna. Her body of work spans a wide spectrum of contemporary composition and intermedia music theater, embracing orchestral, chamber, and solo pieces, as well as installation art, media art, and literature.

She began her piano studies at the University of Music Franz Liszt in Weimar with Gerlinde Otto and Lazar Berman, later pursuing composition with Bernhard Lang and Klaus Lang at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. Since 2011, Bešlić-Gál has co-curated shut up and listen!, a Viennese festival dedicated to transdisciplinary explorations of music and sound art. She is also the founder and artistic director of the “Zvjezdane staze” Artistic Residency in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Conceived as an “Incubator of Ideas,” this residency fosters international collaboration, presentation, and research, while serving as a critical platform for examining art’s evolving role in a rapidly changing world.

Raised in the ideological and cultural milieu of pre-war Yugoslavia, Bešlić-Gál began formal piano education at age six under Prof. Planinka Jurišić-Atić. She soon gained national recognition, performing widely on radio and television and receiving numerous awards. With special permission from the Ministry of Education, she skipped multiple grades, becoming the youngest high school student in Tuzla’s history at just twelve years old.

The onset of the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s, culminating in the siege of Tuzla, dramatically altered her life. Living under conditions of violence and uncertainty, and later seeking refuge in Germany, she experienced firsthand the trauma of displacement, the erosion of communal bonds, and the collapse of societal structures. These formative experiences deeply influence both her artistic sensibilities and her philosophical perspective.

Central to Bešlić-Gál’s artistic inquiry is the exploration of concept of time—its subjective fluidity and its potential to be shaped and reinterpreted. In her works, time functions as an active, malleable instrument. By adjusting spatial arrangements, shifting auditory focal points, and combining instruments, light, objects, architecture, and audiovisual projections, she creates environments that challenge audiences to reconsider notions of linearity, memory, and sensory continuity.

Drawing on existentialist and futurist perspectives, Bešlić-Gál’s compositions place artistic expression at the heart of profound transformations. She invites us to contemplate how creativity, perception, and art-making might evolve as we grapple with new conditions: life in zero-gravity environments, on other planets, within digitally mediated spheres, or under the influence of AI-generated realities. Rather than embracing progress uncritically, she urges recognition of our vulnerabilities and the immense social, ethical, technological, and environmental challenges we face. This perspective also acknowledges systemic injustices and structural inequalities, both past and present, and extends into a broader arena where neoliberal capitalism renders art and culture benign, diminishing its critical impact and societal relevance.

By integrating existential concerns, forward-looking visions, critiques of nationalism, and an awareness of socio-economic inequities, Bešlić-Gál compels us to confront the systemic forces that shape our existence. Her work encourages reflection on how we inhabit space and time, and how we might or should respond—both now and amid the uncertainties that lie ahead.