Jelena Stojkovic

Biography

The life of Prizren-born pianist Jelena Stojković is defined by her deep love of music. Her musical family as well as her connection to her homeland made possible her first points of contact with music. These early experiences inspired and followed her as she set out on her musical journey.

She studied at the Music University in Belgrade, Serbia, the Munich University of Music and Drama with Bianca Bodalia, and at the Leopold Mozart Centre in Augsburg with Evgenia Rubinova. She is a laureate of several Yugoslavian and international competitions, both as soloist and chamber musician.

Stojković currently serves as a piano instructor at the Leopold Mozart College of Music at the University of Augsburg, and since 2016 has conducted the choir at the Sveti Jovan Vladimir Serbian Orthodox Church in Munich. In recent years she has given successful concerts as soloist with orchestras such as the Bavarian Philharmonie, and has collaborated with violinist Sebastian Caspar and vibraphonist Carlos Vera Laruccea, principal percussionist of the Bavarian State Orchestra. She appears regularly with Laruccea as the duo Piano meets Vibra­phone. As a duo, they have appeared at venues such as the contrast Music Festival in Buchloe, for which Stojković, as founder, serves as musical director. She is also a member of the trio CONTRASTS and the piano duo Stojković/Mrktchya. In addition, she belonged to the Piano Trio Animando and the quartet Quattro per Due, an ensemble consisting of two pianists and two percussionists. They recorded their first CD, Grenzlos, in 2018.

Stojković’s concert work includes appearances at many national and international festivals, including the Hohenkammer Sommerfestspiele, the Orff-Tage of the Bavarian Philharmonic in the Herkulessaal, the Ludwigsfestpiele in Füssen, the Black Forest Music Festival, and the European Festival in Passau. Outside of Germany, she has appeared at the German Kultur­ wochen in Cairo, Egypt, the Percussion Festival in Paris, France, the Chamber Music Festival in Ankara, Turkey, the Chamber Music Festival in Belgrade, Serbia, the Piano City Novi Sad Festival in Serbia, and the High Court Con­certs in Canberra, Australia. By means of benefit concerts, she offers her support to charitable organizations such as ASIA­Help and ConCultures as well as Serbian Solidarity.

Stojković’s repertoire is both ground- breaking and transcultural. Besides the great classical works, she focuses a great deal on contemporary music which she often prepares in conjunction with the composers. She has already recorded two CDs with composer Enjott Schneider, including a chamber music CD Dreaming Backwards (June, 2020) and the CD Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt…, a homage to Beethoven with solo and chamber music works in January, 2021.

Her first solo disc, Roses of East, also came out in 2021 and has received outstanding reviews in addition to being chosen as CD of the Month. It is with this disc that the artist began her association with Spektral Records. It includes Russian Romantic works as well as contemporary music and represents a very personal journey into the landscape of her musical homeland.

Pianist