Tuesday, 14thNovember, 7pm
Cultural Centre of Novi Sad, Club “Tribinamladih”
VOJISLAV BUBIŠA SIMIĆ: ZVUCI VREMENA
Participants: Vojislav Bubiša Simić and Vitomir Simurdić
Aleksandar Dujin, piano and Dragan Kozarčić, trumpet
VOJISLAV BUBIŠA SIMIĆ
Vojislav Simić, better known as Bubiša, was born on 18th March 1924 in Belgrade. Although the audiences know him mainly as a conductor of the RTV Belgrade Jazz Orchestra, with which he spent more than three decades, he has worked successfully in other genres as well (symphonic, theatre, film and TV, choral, children’s music).
Vojislav was born to an old and renowned Belgrade family. World War II found him with his parents Dragan and Caca and sister Anuška in Kosovka Street in Belgrade. He matriculated from the Second Grammar School for Boys and graduated Conducting from the Music Academy (FMU) in 1954 under Prof. PredragMilošević. As early as 1946, Vojislav Simić founded an amateur jazz orchestra“Dinamo”, thus becoming the founder of the first big band in Serbia.
From 1953 to 1985 he was the conductor of the RTV Belgrade Jazz Orchestra, with which he toured throughout Europe with great success, most notably the First Prize at the Juan-les-Pins Jazz Festival(France) in 1960. During his long engagement with the orchestra he honed the casual swing of Basiean style. Although his first love is jazz, Bubuša has always liked spiritual music as well as traditional folk music of the Balkans and was the first composer in Serbia to write jazz arrangements of traditional folk music as far back as the 1950s, before ethno jazz became popular. He is a great admirer of theatre art and was a regular guest-conductor at the Terazije Theatre, arranging and conducting the musicals: Cabaret, My Boyfriend, Little Floramye…He has conducted choirs and symphonic orchestras, written expert articles on music and music reviews, as well as travel stories. He has written a number of compositions of various genres. His love for children and poems of Jovan JovanovićZmaj resulted in beautiful children’s songs, collaboration with the choir “Kolibri” and the unforgettable TV series “Neven”.
He has been the president of the Composers’ Association of Serbia, as well as the Association of Jazz Musicians. He has been awarded theOrder of Labour with Golden Wreath, the Culture Award of the City of Belgrade ‘Zlatnibeočug’, as well as theRTV Serbia’s Life Achievement Award.
Vojislav Simić lives in Belgrade with his wife. They have two daughters, three grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Published books:
“Susreti i sećanja” – Meetings and Memories (Narodnaknjiga, 2005)
“Veseloputovanjesadžezorkestrom RTV Beograd pobelomsvetu”– Joyful Tours with the RTV Jazz Orchestra All around the World (RTS, 2006)
“Sentimentalno putovanje” – A Sentimental Journey (Clio, 2011)
“Neispričane priče”– The Untold Stories (author’s edition, 2014)
“Zvuci vremena”– The Sounds of Time (author’s edition, 2017)
About book “Zvuci vremena”
Velja Pavlović, journalist
“Unpretentious and charming accounts are arranged in chapters which correspond to the themes that have marked Bubiša’slife: wars, friends, travels, music and childhood…
…A conductor who is a good listener and never loses his gift of joy, and lives and writes with elegance…”
Goran Marković, film director
“Instead of a review of Bubiša Simić’s book “Zvucivremena”, I will quote an interview with a trumpet player from his orchestra, the tragically deceased Nikola Mima Mitrović. On a beach in Budva, he told me that during their American tour, a black musician had praised performance of their band. Mimo was pleased, and then the jazzman added: “The only people besides us, the blacks, that can play jazz well are people from Eastern Europe.” “Why?” my interlocutor asked. “Because they have suffered”, he replied.
This is, I dare say, the story that Bubiša tells in this book.”