As we approach the 25th edition of “Horizons on the Tisa,” besides the usual and expected praise for the original achievements of this completely unique festival in our region, and the mention of its great moments and interpretive successes of numerous artists, the organizers have decided to portray the Days of Josif Marinković with a monograph. Given the preserved rich documentation, this monograph could certainly be the most authentic witness to the festival's history.
Today’s reflection and evaluation of the role and concept of this valuable event, not only for Novi Bečej but also for our entire musical and cultural life, undoubtedly support the claim that it has brought specific standards in nurturing domestic, primarily vocal music. Moreover, it has highlighted significant values of Serbian music history and, most importantly, stimulated the creation of new works.
Finally, but not least, “Horizons on the Tisa” have, through some of their “discoveries,” that is, by introducing young award-winning singers to the world, demonstrated that they are not just a local festival. They have produced talents that meet the highest standards of music lovers and experts from the most renowned global artistic centers.
The task of the creators of this monograph was not simple, as they had to select from a comprehensive material (program booklets, photographs, written texts of various genres, critiques, reviews, information, minutes) collected over two and a half decades. This selection was undoubtedly guided by strong authentic memories and impressions.
Given the importance of choral singing in our tradition and in the present moment, “Horizons” owe their beginning to the participation of the small choir of “Dositej Obradović” Primary School from Bočar in the official part of the Mokranjac Days, the oldest music festival in Serbia. This young ensemble, under the direction of conductor Zagorka Jegdić, performed in the distant year of 1992. It was precisely in Mokranjac’s Negotin that the idea of founding the Days of Josif Marinković in Novi Bečej was born.
Immediately named “Horizons on the Tisa,” the event became our first spring festival. The pioneering credit for its launch, besides Zaga, a rarely gifted cultural worker who devoted herself to it with all her strength and soul, skill, and intelligence, belongs to academician Dejan Despić, ethnomusicologists Dr. Dragoslav Dević and Dr. Dimitrije O. Golemović, composer Konstantin Babić, opera artist Biserka Cvejić, and many other experts from Belgrade, Novi Sad, and Zrenjanin, as well as Novi Bečej’s “Polet,” with its brilliant management, which has been deeply interested in supporting culture for many years.
This newly born music celebration is rightfully dedicated to composer Josif Marinković, born in Vranjevo. It is understandable that the Days of Josif Marinković, as the only event of its kind in our country, are organized as alternating competitions for solo singers and an invitational composers' competition for solo songs, given that Josif Marinković was the founder and the most significant romantic author of Serbian solo songs. Both of these program segments have equally contributed to the rise of our vocal art and, with each new edition, confirmed the necessity of their survival and longevity.
Although, in recent years, due to various circumstances, the planned biennial rhythm of the festival has been disrupted, with the event being held twice solely as a singing competition, it is undeniable that new works in the field of solo songs, around ninety of them, continue to thrive on the concert stage. Moreover, many singing talents discovered here are building successful artistic careers.
Particularly those who have won awards have gone on to achieve remarkable success both at home and abroad, the most famous being the winner of the first competition, baritone Željko Lučić. Experts speak of him as the most successful opera artist ever to come from this region, encompassing the entire former Yugoslavia. His engagements in the Frankfurt Opera, London’s Covent Garden, New York’s Metropolitan, the Vienna State Opera, and many other world opera houses, though unfortunately rare in his homeland (we’ve had the pleasure of watching and listening to him in Metropolitan Opera broadcasts as Rigoletto in Verdi’s opera of the same name and as Iago in Verdi’s Otello), continue to thrill audiences across all continents.
Among other winners of “Horizons,” we mention, certainly with some injustice to those we don’t name here, baritones Vasa Stajkić and Vladimir Andrić, tenor Dejan Maksimović, mezzo-sopranos Nataša Jović Trivić, Aleksandra Angelov, Violeta Srećković, and Jelena Končar, as well as sopranos Snežana Savičić and Sofija Pižurica, for example. All of them have delighted audiences with numerous roles at the Belgrade and Novi Sad Operas, as well as Zemun’s Madlenianum. Through the performance of new solo songs created for “Horizons” by the most significant contemporary Serbian composers, they honor the name of Josif Marinković. Furthermore, with other activities nurtured by the Cultural Center, they inscribe the name of Novi Bečej on the artistic map of Serbia.
Open to their own productions, the organizers of “Horizons” in 2007 staged their own production of the children’s opera “The Boy Who Was Afraid of Nothing” by Dimitrije O. Golemović, a project shaped under the beneficial hand of Zagorka Jegdić, who showed how to animate people and draw the maximum from both herself and others.
We believe that her successors, like her, will continue to unreservedly support young artists, both those who will compete in the Open Solo Singing Competition and those who will be ready to interpret solo songs from the biennial Invitational Competition for this once again revived artistic genre in Serbian music.
Today, “Horizons on the Tisa” represent a given, an integral part of the cultural life of Novi Bečej, and often the most significant event of the season in this picturesque and hospitable Banat town. For the musical life, the young singers affirmed here, and the composers introduced for the first time in the pleasant and diverse programs of the Cultural Center, it remains an exceptional source of information on authorial styles, performance, and domestic creativity. Despite everything that has happened to us, 25 years of existence speak volumes about the importance and necessity of the Days of Josif Marinković for this and a broader community. They also testify that we nurture our cultural habits, that we are an artistic center, and that we are part of Europe and the world.
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