Mirjana Živković

Mirjana Živković, born in Split on 3 May 1935, is a Serbian composer whose career developed mainly in Belgrade. Her training combined the local academic route with a period in Paris, where she worked with Messiaen and Boulanger between 1967 and 1968, and she offers a good example of the generation of Serbian creators who looked towards post-war European music.

She graduated from the Belgrade Academy of Music in 1964, after studying composition with Rajičić. She was later appointed professor of theory in that city, a post she combined with publishing essays on harmony and counterpoint and analytical studies of works by twentieth-century Serbian composers.

Her early compositions display neo-Baroque features and an atonal language that partly recalls Expressionism. Over time, her music gained in economy of means and in direct communication, as shown by Zaboravljeni kontrapunkt (1980), or 'Forgotten Counterpoint', for solo voices.