10 YEARS OF REMUSICA

“The fate of new music, the fate of today’s composer and fate of his work”

The main aim of REMUSICA, over these ten years of its existence, was popularization of contemporary music and, with it, popularization of works of Kosovar composers. The contemporary musical piece has always been in the centre of our attention. We justly considered that the best step to be undertaken towards changing the position of contemporary works, was to keep their work alive, and to find ways how to achieve this.
Starting from this principle, we and my friends – Baki Jashari, Mendi Mengjiqi, Ilir Bajri, Zana Shuteriqi, and Valton Beqiri, in autumn of 2001, after many long discussions, decided to start preparation for organizing a festival of contemporary music, first as New Musical Scene of Prishtina (as a reference to a similar festival that existed in Kosovo for two decades) and
then we decided to name it with the more significant ReMusica (New Music). Thus, International Festival of Prishtina – REMUSICA, came to life in spring 2002.
(Renowned artists and formations)
We were assured that the best way to make popular new music was via realising in best possible and qualitative ways new musical works. This meant that cooperation with renowned artists and ensembles – who are competent in giving life to the selected musical works – was necessary. As one can notice in the program of this years’ edition, this method is still
being practiced. This year REMUSICA brings one of the most celebrated ensembles in the region for the last four decades, I Solisti di Zagreb from Croatia; then the prominent pianist from Japan, Aki Takahashi, who is an authoritative artist that great composers of the 20 century have composed for; the new trumpet virtuoso from France, Romain Leleu, who was the
artist of the year in France in 2009; the attractive clarinettist from USA, Krista Martynez, with her multimedia performance; Kalei Duo (accordion – flute) from Italy /T. Ciccaresse and G. Fasseta/; the talented German trio (Belli-Fischer-Rimmer); the Kosovo artist who achieved great success in the international scene, Petrit Çeku, returns after two years; also, mezzosoprano
Flaka Goranci, sopranos Besa Llugiqi and Admir Doçi, will present attractive vocal literature from the Hispanic canon, and many others.

(Care for Kosovar works)
A special caption of REMUSICA is its dedication to realisation and stimulation of Kosovar new music works. It is well known that international artists that come to our festival include Kosovar works in their program. And during these ten years,an impressive number of Kosovar works has been realised.
There has also been an audio recording of all works. Today, REMUSICA, has the biggest audio archive of Kosovar music of the last decade.
With this edition we are closing a decade of our work with hope that this festival will continue being key for the development of contemporary music, and centre of musical life in Prishtina.

Rafet RUDI,
Director of REMUSICA