Belma Bešlić-Gál | 1978 [Tuzla, SFR Yugoslavia]
DATA
 
AWARDS* GRANTS/SCHOLARSHIPS*
Composer in Residence – Komponistinnen nach Frankfurt International Scholarship 2011 [Archive of Women in Music, Frankfurt am Main], Arts & Culture Award 2011 [Ingrid zu Solms Foundation, Frankfurt am Main], START-Scholarship for Composition and Performing Arts 2011 [Arts Division of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture], Austrian State Scholarship for Composition 2014 [Arts Division of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture], Publicity Award 2019 [SKE/austromechana], Austrian State Scholarship for Composition 2024 [Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport], Composition Working grant of the City of Vienna 2024 [Cultural Department of the City of Vienna], Composition Grant 2011 [SKE/austromechana], Publication Grant 2012 [SKE/austromechana], Composition Grant 2012/2015/2017 [Cultural Department of the City of Vienna],  Composition Grant 2012/2013/2015 [Arts Division of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture], Composition Grant 2016/2017 [Art Section of the Austrian Federal Chancellery]
 

EDUCATION: Sedam sekretara SKOJ-a Elementary School, Music Elementary School Tuzla, Music High School Tuzla, Berufsfachschule für Musik Plattling, Thomasgymnasium zu Leipzig, Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar – Piano [Gerlinde Otto, Lazar Berman], Kunstuniversität Graz – Composition, Music Theory, Music Theatre [Bernhard Lang, Klaus Lang]

WORKSHOPS* Darmstädter Ferienkurse [Rebecca Saunders, Brian Ferneyhough, Raphaël Cendo, Germáno Toro-Pérez], Akademie für Neue Musik – Meisterkurse an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater München [Wolfgang Rihm], Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar [Michael Obst, Robin Minard, Albrecht von Massow, Reinhard Wolschina], Internationales Forum für professionelle Choreographinnen und Komponistinnen Reutlingen [James Sutherland, Elsa Genova]

ENSEMBLES* CIPRA Quartet, WISE: Wien – International Soloists Ensemble, echo_von_nichts (Ensemble für stille Musik), Ensemble I z M, dissonArt Ensemble, JazzWerkstatt Wien, Studio Dan, szene instrumental, oenm – œsterreichisches ensemble fuer neue musik, Duo Soufflé, Ensamble del Cepromusic, Fidelio Trio, ensemble reconsil wien, Ensemble Kontrapunkte, airborne extended, Platypus Ensemble, mise-en ensemble, SolistInnen des styriarte Festspiel-Orchesters, The Black Page Orchestra, TENM – Tiroler Ensemble für Neue Musik, PHACE, Ensemble für Neue Musik, Duo FredDo
 
FESTIVALS | CONCERT SERIES* CRO-ArT Festival [Vienna, Austria], Vareš Classic Festival [Vareš, BiH], Sonic Vigil [Cork, Ireland],  Hörfest [Graz, Austria],  2. X – TENDED [Vienna, Austria], Encuentro de Arte Sonoro Tsonami [Buenos Aires, Argentina], neue musik st. Ruprecht [Vienna, Austria], Liquid Music Festival [Judenburg, Austria], Sláturtíð Festival [Reykjavík, Ísland], shut up and listen! Transdisciplinary Festival for Music and Sound Art [Vienna, Austria], live recording session@amann studio [Vienna, Austria], Roomservice Festival [Vienna, Austria], International computer music conference ICMC 2012 [Ljubljana, Slovenia], andere saite [Graz, Austria], œnm . ganz privat [Salzburg, Austria], 16th Biennial Festival of New Music [Tallahassee, Florida, USA], Atelierkonzert für Neue Musik Astrid Rieder [Salzburg, Austria], hoergeREDER Festival| [Graz, Austria], Soundings Festival [London, UK], ISCM World Music Days [Bratislava, Slovakia], Tsonami Córdoba 2013-encuentro de arte sonoro y nuevas músicas [Córdoba, Argentina], Welser Abonnementkonzerte [Wels, Austria], Ensemble Kontrapunkte Musikverein [Vienna, Austria], styriarte [Graz, Austria], IGNM @ prattica [Graz, Austria], Sonemus Fest [Sarajevo, BiH], SOLOIST series at MISE-EN_PLACE [New York City, USA], CONNECTIONS Series @ Austrian Cultural Forum [New York City, USA], Musiktheatertage Wien [Vienna, Austria], do trans-Art! [Salzburg, Austria], Ljeto u Tuzli [Tuzla, BiH]
 
CURATORIAL WORK* Refleksija [Multimedia Music Project], Experimental jet set [Performances, Media art, Concerts, Exibitions, Texts], MANUFAKTURA [Multimedia Art Festival], shut up and listen! Transdisciplinary Festival for Music and Sound Art [Non-Profit Organisation for Art and Transdisciplinarity sp ce], Muzičko-scenski performans “Mak Dizdar: prvih stotinu godina” [Fondacija Mak Dizdar, Sarajevo]
 

RADIO PORTRAITS* Ö1 Zeit-Ton Porträt. Belma Beslic-GálAtelier für Neue Musik: Belma Beslic – Gál_Radio Feature, Part IAtelier für Neue Musik: Belma Beslic – Gál_Radio Feature, Part IIVom Nichts – Porträt Belma Bešlić-Gál | 09/03/2013_23:05 h | hr2-kultur, “The Artist’s Corner” | Gestaltung: Stefan Fricke, Ö1 Zeit-Ton, Querschnitte – Porträt Belma Bešlić-Gál | 01/03/2015 | RAI Südtirol | Gestaltung: Manuela Kerer, Ö1 Zeit-Ton | Styriarte 2015 – Gli ScherziÖ1 Zeit-Ton: Zeit-Ton extendedÖ1 Zeit-Ton: styriarte 2016. Große TöchterÖ1 Zeit-Ton: IGNM @ prattica E: Elektronik und … (Teil 2)

ARTIST COLABORATIONS* Bernhard Gál (composer, curator, artist) AUT [sp ce/Vienna, Austria], Goran Stevanović (accordion) BiH/DEU [Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien/Hannover, Germany], Vera Klug (flute) AUT [Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik/Salzburg, Austria], Michael Moser (violoncello) AUT,  Matthias Schorn (clarinet) AUT [Vienna Philharmonic, Austria], Annelie Gahl (violin) AUT [Universität Mozarteum/Salzburg, Austria], Wolfgang Hattinger (composer, conductor) AUT [ensemble szene instrumental/Kunstuniversität Graz, Austria], Doris Nicoletti (flute) AUT [Ensemble Phace/Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, Austria], Peter Jakober (composer, curator) AUT, Matthias Kranebitter (composer, conductor, curator) AUT [The Black Page Orchestra/Vienna, Austria], Christoph Szalay (author, writer) AUT, Nataša Mirković (musician, singer, conductor) BiH/AUT, Harald Pröckl (accordion, conductor) AUT [TENM / Tiroler Landeskonservatorium, Austria], Klaus Lang (composer, organ) AUT [Kunstuniversität Graz, Austria]
 
INSTITUTIONS* Ingrid zu Solms-Stiftung [Frankfurt am Main, Germany], die andere saite [Graz, Austria], Planetarium Judenburg [Austria], Internationale Musikmesse [Frankfurt am Main, Germany], Archiv Frau & Musik [Frankfurt am Main, Germany], El Centro Cultural Recoleta [Buenos Aires, Argentina], neue musik st. Ruprecht [Vienna, Austria], Reykjavík Art Museum [Reykjavík, Ísland], Stjörnuverið [Reykjavík, Ísland], Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität [Frankfurt am Main, Germany], Hoffmanns Höfe [Frankfurt am Main, Germany], Stift St. Peter [Salzburg, Austria], Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main [Frankfurt am Main, Germany], Echoraum [Vienna, Austria], ORF Studio Steiermark [Graz, Austria], Ö1 [Austria], Centrum audiovizuálních studií, Filmová a televizní fakulta Akademie múzických umění v Praze (FAMU) [Praha, Česká republika], Amann Studio [Vienna, Austria], Institut für neue Medien (INM) [Frankfurt am Main, Germany], Porgy & Bess [Vienna, Austria], Kino Šiška [Ljubljana, Slovenija], Univerza v Ljubljani/Akademija za glazbo [Ljubljana, Slovenija], Theater Reutlingen Die Tonne [Germany], Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten [Graz Austria], Kunstverein [Salzburg, Austria], Opperman Music Hall/The Florida State University [Tallahassee, Florida, USA], Hessischer Rundfunk [Germany], Austrian Cultural Forum [London, UK], Arnold Schönberg Center [Vienna, Austria], Alte Schmiede [Vienna, Austria], Centro de Producción e Investigación en Artes (CePIA) de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba [Argentina], Landesmusikschule [Wels, Austria], Austrian Cultural Forum [Budapest, Hungary], Essl Museum – Kunst der Gegenwart [Klosterneuburg, Austria], Centro de Experimentación y Producción de la Música Contemporánea [Mexico City, Mexico], Palacio de Bellas Arte [Mexico City, Mexico], RAI Südtirol [Italy], Musikverein [Wien, Austria], Künstlerhaus [Salzburg, Austria], Mumuth der Kunstuniversität Graz [Graz, Austria], Martin-Luther-Kirche zu Ehlershausen [Burgdorf bei Hannover, Germany], Schlosstheater Celle [Germany], Forum Stadtpark [Graz, Austria], Dom armije [Sarajevo, BiH], BKC [Tuzla, BiH], The Society Of New Music Sarajevo – SONEMUS [BiH], MISE-EN_PLACE [Brooklyn, NY, USA], Austrian Cultural Forum [New York City, USA] | Helmut List Halle [Graz, Austria] | Werk-X [Vienna, Austria] | Fondacija Mak Dizdar [Sarajevo, BiH] | Narodno pozorište Sarajevo [Sarajevo, BiH] | Vierundeinzig [Innsbruck, Austria] | Konzerthaus [Vienna, Austria] | Kurhaus [Hall in Tirol, Austria] | Muzička akademija Sarajevo [Sarajevo, BiH] | Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral [Cork, Ireland]
 
* Selection
ASSORTED REVIEWS & INTERVIEWS

SPRECHGOLD with Sylvia Wendrock: Ich will nicht schweigen [2024]

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[…] Modernist interventions in space have always searched for references; they have explored, discovered or failed to find commonalities. Belma Bešlić wants us to really immerse ourselves in today’s world, especially in a place like Radimlja, creating an ultra-modern context that suits Mak Dizdar, who was himself a modernist author. For Belma, his work is an open book, and she is an artist of ambience – an articulate and confident artist – which is especially important as she is an excellent composer. This alone is enough to convince us of her artistic idea that ambientity is one of the possible relevant paths to Mak Dizdar’s poetics. Belma Bešlić simply has the talent to penetrate the unconscious and the dreamlike and to find places of kinship with Mak Dizdar’s poetics. Therefore, it is possible that her Mak Dizdar – or Mak in her performance – is not loud, does not shout (as it used to be with Vojin Komadina and Jan Beran), but is reduced to a soft whisper or even murmur – almost to silence – which, as shown in Radimlja, is a very meaningful idea. […]

Nenad Rizvanović: Ambijentalno o Maku [Oslobođenje, August 15th 2024] | An Ambient Approach to Mak.pdf

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[…] The fascination of vastness, the unreachable and the spherical resonate in Bešlić-Gál´s compositions as she slowly creates iridescent “sound organisms” emerging from nothingness. Far from formal structures, the individual parts that merge into homogeneous sounds follow their own laws of continuous change and, with their course that neither begins nor ends, suspend the common sense of time. In these sources of inspiration, which lie beyond everyday perception, and the new world formed from them, there is also criticism of prevailing circumstances, such as that of the post-war societies of the Western Balkans. Her early career as a pianist also strengthened her “aversion” to the concert establishment and established performance practice. With interdisciplinary works that reinforced notions of the previously unheard expressed in music, she battles these conventions with subtle soundscapes. […]

Doris Weberberger [micaaustria]

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SPACE=WOW (BUT I STILL MISS YOU, EARTH) premiered on May 16, 2017, at the KULTUM, Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten Graz is a commissioned work to the Austrian literati Christoph Szalay (*1987). Together, the artists developed a delicate fabric of text and sound, which chooses the Mars mission planned for the year 2035 as a starting point to address Planet Earth and its inhabitants. The performance space becomes a surreal place in which the hierarchy of the ensemble dissolves and instrumentalists, conductor and singer act as equal participants, travelling through space-time. Sound sources of all kinds are hidden and form a symbiosis with the space and the bodies being present, with language and with light. Thereby an organic unity of sound space, darkness and being emerges, which raises questions and stimulates reflection.

Elfriede Reissig, Composing Women | ‘Femininity’ and Views on Cultures, Gender and Music of Southeastern Europe since 1918, Vienna: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2022, S. 70.