Zvezdana Novaković (SI)

Type: Etno/Folk/Traditional/Popular

Singer Zvezdana Novaković will share her personal story and discuss her focus of the past ten years on traditional singing of Balkan and Slavic cultures, which she also researches, performs and teaches. She will cover the essence of folk singing, how to get to the living oral tradition today, how to approach a foreign culture, how to start studying it in an academic setting and apply it on stage, and show you some warm-up exercises.

Zvezdana Novaković is a singer, harpist and vocal coach from Northeast Slovenia. By combining traditional folk, jazz, classical and electronic music with performing arts, she creates unique ways of expression. Her voice and musical artistry are influenced by a tradition of Slavic and Balkan cultures. By singing folk songs of her Serbian and Slovenian grandmother, she wants to remind us of ancestors’ traditions. While studying Bulgarian folk singing in Plovdiv, she also learned songs from many respected folk singers. She is an award-winning artist (Grand Prix at the PPA competition (Poland); 1st Prize at the World Music Zeman Fest (Serbia); 2nd Prize at the traditional folk-singing competition in Karnobat (Bulgaria).