Two concerts in Belgrade were organised by the Mokranjac Foundation, cooperating with the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society of the Republic of Serbia, the Municipal Assembly of the City of Belgrade and the Belgrade Stari grad Municipality.
The First Belgrade Singing Society, www.pbpd.infoconducted by Svetlana Vilic, performed at the first concert held in the main auditorium of The Municipal Assembly of the City of Belgrade, on September 6th 2011.
The First Belgrade Singing Society, as the oldest choir in Serbia was founded at 1853. Because of the 30 years’ work of Stevan Mokranjac as an artistic director and a conductor, this choir is known as the Mokranjac’s choir. Besides Mokranjac, many conductors of the Society were very important composers and conductors in Serbia such as Kornelije Stankovic, Josif Marinkovic, Davorin Jenko etc. The choir presented many concerts, and received a lot of international awards at the prestigious national and international competitions.
At the concert at The Municipal Assembly of the City of Belgrade, the choir performed spiritual music of the Serbian and Russian composers. With this successful performance, with a conductor Svetlana Vilic, the First Belgrade Singing Society was confirmed once again as one of the best Serbian choir.
The Academic Cultural Art Society – Choir "Ivo Lola Ribar" www.kudlola.org.rs conducted by Milovan Pancic, performed at the second concert held in the Concert Hall of the Ilija M. Kolarac Foundation, on September 17th 2011. The choir was the winner of the Singing Competition at the Festival "The Mokranjac Days" in Negotin in 2010.
This respected choir presented more than 3000 concerts around the world and also regularly got many of the highest awards at the competitions. During six decade existence, almost 9000 singers passed through the choir, several eminent conductors as well. Some of them became prominent members of Belgrade Opera.
The audience in the completely full Concert Hall of the Ilija M. Kolarac Foundation was very impressed by great interpretation of the world spiritual and secular music performed by the Choir "Ivo Lola Ribar". The public was especially impressed by the performance of Mokranjac’s works and the modern Serbian authors. The long applause of Belgrade audience and real ovations, were the best illustration of this special music evening.