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The Belgrade Madrigal Choir was founded in 1951 and for more than fifty years has been cultivating spirituality, thus linking the culture of Serbia and that of Europe. Founder and conductor, Milan Bajšanski and a group of choir music lovers gathered around him, formed the new choir, one of the best known choirs in this part of the world, to foster some particular kind of music like madrigals and motets, renaissance and baroque Italian, German, French and English masterpieces but also old Byzantine and Serbian sacred melodies and profane music of Serbian and foreign composers. The variety of its repertoire features vocal and vocal-instrumental music by Serbian and foreign composers from early periods until present times. Key performances include Mozart’s ‘Coronation Mass’, Rossini’s ‘Solemn Mass’, ‘Pope Marcello’s Mass’ and ‘Stabat Mater’ by Palestrina.
The Choir toured in many countries and had over a thousand concert performances throughout Serbia and in major musical centers of Europe, took part in the various festivals. It performed in the Cathedral in Lyon, in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome – in the presence of Pope Paul VI. It was on the air (BBC, RAI, ORTF) and it made several recordings of Serbian spiritual music. It won many international awards – First Prize in the international Festival in Arezzo (1957, 1964) as well as in the Festival in Llangollen (1962) and awarded in Perugia, Bratislava and Brno.
The Choir was decorated with ‘Order of St. Sava’ by Serbian Orthodox Church in 1991 for the extraordinary achievements in fostering Serbian sacred music. His holiness The Patriarch of Serbian Orthodox Church Pavle said: “…This choir has been cherishing sacred music and maintaining the highest performing quality what hasn’t been easy at all…”.
All these years, the Choir was conducted by Milan Bajšanski (founder), Dimitrije Stefanović, Svetolik Paščan, Vojislav Ilić, Dušan Miladinović, Vladimir Milić, Aleksandar Spasić and many others.
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