The Tivat Music Festival from June to August offers a rich content

The Tivat Music Festival (TMF) has five main objectives: audience development for music art through carefully designed and high-quality implemented programs; strengthening the capacity of the local music scene in the Municipality of Tivat by gathering, presenting, and collaborating with various profiles of music professionals (composers, performers, music writers) and amateurs from Tivat, as well as initiating the establishment or revival of various music ensembles; positioning Tivat as a distinctive artistic center of the Bay of Kotor by generating potential of professional and amateur musicians of the Bay of Kotor, through initiatives for the formation of the chamber ensemble "Boka" and the City choir, and through the presentation of some of the most significant national, regional, and international artists of today, as well as promoting domestic young talents; supporting and promoting female creativity; relying on local heritage, primarily on the poetic work of the prominent Tivat poetess Maja Perfiljeva (1941-2019), in the field of musical interpretation of her work through various genres and forms (solo song, choir, chamber ensemble, pop music).

This year's festival program is scheduled from mid-June to mid-August 2024. In addition to local partners (Tivat Cultural Center, Luštica Bay, Porto Montenegro, Montenegro Sotheby's Realty, Henley & Partners, Caritas Kotorske Biskupije, Župa Tivat, and others), Festival programs are planned in partnership with a number of national, regional, and international organizations such as Jeunesses Musicales Croatia, Italian Cultural Institute in Belgrade, Italian Embassy in Montenegro, Deutsche Welle, Youth Symphony Orchestra of Eastern Bavaria, Belgian organization ThinkYoung, organizations BUNT and Kulturanova from Serbia, as well as KotorArt. 

The Festival will pay special attention this year to young artists native to or originating from Montenegro, who are also ambassadors of the Festival worldwide. These include soprano Petra Radulović, a native of Kotor with an engagement in the Hanover State Opera, who is building a very successful international career, and bass Sava Vemić, a Belgradian originating from Durmitor, whose voice and talent captivate audiences of the world's most significant opera houses.

The opening of the first Tivat Music Festival is planned for June 28 in the large hall of the Tivat Cultural Center, with a gala opera program featuring the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Samra Gulamović, and soloists soprano Valentina Elizabeta Šilje and tenors Božo Jurić Pešič and Tomislav Jukić. Special guests of the concert will be soprano Petra Radulović and bass Sava Vemić

Programs for the youngest

As one of the cornerstones of the entire Tivat Music Festival, opera art will also be present at concerts for the youngest. In collaboration with professors from the Art School for Music and Ballet Vasa Pavić from Podgorica, as a prelude to the Festival, on June 18, the children's opera "Snow White" will be performed by students of this school. The Artistic Association Visoko C from Serbia is recognized for performing operas adapted for children, as well as staging original operas for different age groups of children. They will perform in Tivat from July 17 to 23, presenting three operas to the youngest audience: "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Cricket and the Ant," and the opera for babies "Little Bee Dana." In addition to the opportunity to get acquainted with various operas for children, the youngest audience will also have the opportunity to participate in interactive workshops for music and dance organized by the Artish: Lab association, aimed at babies and parents, based on a doctoral research project on how music and movement affect the psychomotor development of children up to 3 years old. 

In addition to the youngest audience, adults will have the opportunity to get better acquainted with opera art through the series of Opera Stories, in which two programs will present well-known operas "La Traviata" by Giuseppe Verdi and "The Elixir of Love" by Gaetano Donizetti. The concept of this series is designed to bring opera works closer to the audience in a more concise, intimate version, with narration about the opera plot and performances of the most beautiful and important arias.

Opera concerts and recitals

A grand opera concert titled "Evening of Operatic Arias" will be held on July 25 in the large hall of the Tivat Cultural Center. On this occasion, the audience will be presented with two successful young Montenegrin and internationally engaged opera artists - soprano Petra Radulović and bass Sava Vemić, who will be hosts to two names from the world opera scene in Tivat: tenor Benjamin Bliss and mezzo-soprano Nina Van Essen. This vocal quartet will perform accompanied by the festival orchestra, under the baton of experienced Croatian opera conductor Mladen Tarbuk.

At three opera recitals in Gornja Lastva from July 22 to 24, the following performers will appear: sopranos Antonia Vučinović and Ljiljana Lišković from Tivat, and in collaboration with the Operosa festival, mezzo-soprano Slavica Božić. 

American and Italian Artists as Guests

A special highlight will be the concert on August 2nd titled "California Dreaming," held in Porto Montenegro, featuring music from Baroque to Rock and promoting an orchestra composed of Montenegrin and American musicians under the baton of internationally renowned conductor Nir Kabaretti, with violinist Gilles Apap, an authentic star of the global music scene. Apap, once a protege of the incomparable Yehudi Menuhin, was described by Menuhin as the "true violinist of the 21st century."

Another program, representing a unique curiosity and one of the peaks of the first TMF, will take place on the island of Gospa od Milosti on July 16th. In Montenegro, parts of the operas "La Circe" and "Coriolanus," with libretto by Don Krsto Ivanović, will have their premiere concert performance. A native of Budva, canon of the Church of St. Mark in Venice during the 17th century, Ivanović was a librettist for operas performed not only in Venice but also in Vienna and Piacenza. With the support of the Italian Embassy in Montenegro and the Italian Cultural Institute in Belgrade, along with the internationally acclaimed Roman ensemble Mare Nostrum and the mentioned works of our author, a creator insufficiently known to the Montenegrin public, the program will draw the attention of experts and the wider public to Don Ivanović, the artists, and the Festival, as well as to the new position of Tivat on the musical map of Montenegro and the region.

Jazz Concerts

As one of the artistic threads making up the program of the first TMF, the sound of jazz music will be present throughout the Festival. A concert by the internationally acclaimed World Youth Jazz Orchestra (JM Jazz World Orchestra), which concludes its European tour on July 17th after performing at the Dubrovnik Summer Games, is planned. Then, the Aureum saxophone quartet from Austria will perform in collaboration with the Embassy of Austria as part of a mini-tour in Montenegro. One of the most interesting concerts for the local audience will undoubtedly be the composer Ivan Marović's evening on July 30th in Gornja Lastva. Marović, a native of Tivat who has been living in Berlin in recent years, is already known to the audience as a versatile and original musician covering a wide range of genres, from classical to jazz and rock.

Regional Musicians – WBYO on July 28th

In addition to the mentioned orchestras, another major orchestra - the Western Balkan Youth Orchestra (WBYO) - is scheduled to perform on the breakwater in Luštica Bay on July 28th. The work of this orchestra is supported by the European Union through the Creative Europe program, Deutsche Welle, and numerous other partners. The orchestra will spend this summer in Montenegro on residency, after which they will embark on a major tour of the Balkans and Germany.

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