home >

FEDEMUS - Festival of Children's Creative Music Work "Children composers"

The festival of Children’s Creative Music Work “Children Composers” (FEDEMUS) is a unique children’s festival where children take part in all its aspects. Children compose, write lyrics and then perform their songs. Children are treated as serious associates, their ideas are welcomed and their opinions are appreciated.

The festival “Children composers” promotes children’s individual creativity in music and creative work of adults with children. In order to gather a great number of talented young composers ,Children’s Cultural Centre of Belgrade opens the contest annually, for the best children’s song and the best instrumental or electronic (computer) composition.

The competitors are children aged 7-15 who write music in music classes or extra –curricular activities.

The primary school pupils, participants in various musical activities in children’s cultural centres and other similar institutions and associations on the territory of Serbia are all entitled to compete.

The children jury awards the most successful works 1 st, 2 nd and 3 rd prize for the best composition and also awards prizes for the best lyrics and interpretation of a song.

Children’s Cultural Centre of Belgrade has taken over the complete organization of the festival which includes: announcement and supervision of the contest, selection of the jury members, festival council members and the members of selection commission, organization and realisation of the final concert where the most successful compositions are preformed.

In a period of ten years during which the festival has been realised, 3 audio cassettes and 4 CDs were released by PGP- RTS. The children were even the authors of the sleeves on these tapes and CDs. All published material has been accompanied with the collections of notes which in total include 110 compositions from the festivals in period of 1995-2005.

fedemus (foto) The members of jury, festival council and selection commission and the period of their assignment for the festival from 1995 to 2005:

-Zoran Nikolic. master in music and arranger, who has been working for the festival since 1995
- Simeon Misev, a music teacher ( 1995-2003)
- Vesna Veljkovic, a music teacher and composer ( 1995-2003)
- Dragana Mihajlovic-Bokan, a music teacher and composer ( since 2003)
- Ivana Mezalin, a music teacher ( since 2003)
- Mirjana Milicic Prokic, a music teacher and the music editor of the Children’s Cultural Centre of Belgrade and editor of the Festival

This great manifestation is realized under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Sports of the Republic of Serbia. Moreover, the Ministry included this festival into its regular programme for teaching music in Serbian schools and publishes the announcement of the contest every year in its official issue “ Educational Preview”

(‘ Prosvetni pregled ‘ ). Since 2004, the Secretariat for Culture of the Belgrade City Hall has also been a patron of this unique musical event.

The festival ‘ Children Composers’ is realized during the entire school year and consists of several phases. The contest is announced from January to March. In April the selection commission of the festival chooses the compositions for the final concert and this is also a time when matrixes are recorded.. September is a period for recording the soloist singers and backing vocals in a studio, while the final concert is held in October. After the festival is finished, a CD and its collection of notes are published and promoted.

The authors of this project are Mr Simeon Misev, a music teacher, and Ms Mirjana Milicic a music teacher and music editor of Children’s Cultural Centre of Belgrade.