View the photo gallery: XVIDaniHarmonike

For the 16th time, the music school “Kornelije Stankovic” organized the traditional festival “Dani Harmonike” in Bijeljina/Ugljevik, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to concerts and master classes, competitions for soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras were held, judged by an international jury of experts made up of renowned and proven music educators and performers from several countries. Thanks to the excellent organization, high evaluation criteria and great guests, the festival has now gained a great reputation according to many prominent music critics.

This year around 120 young accordionists from 15 countries met (for the first time even a candidate from China!) who determined their best in 11 solo, five entertainment, three chamber music and two orchestral categories. Many participants surprised the international jury with their very mature performances, even at a young age.

What was new this year was that the highest solo category “Accordion Euro Coupe” was held in two rounds, which further increased the level and diversity of the performances. While the Swede Leo Florin Muravjov, a student in the class of Friedrich Lips at the Moscow Gnesin Academy, was in a class of his own in the classical category, the Italian Emanuele Viti convincingly won first place in light music. From an Austrian perspective, the achievements of Marko Maletic from Graz were very pleasing, as he won in his light music category and will represent Austria at the international CIA competition Coupe Mondiale in Castelfidardo (Italy) in the fall.

This year the evening concerts were performed by Emanuele Viti (Italy), Leo Florin (Sweden), Luca Bello (Italy), Chenxin Yu (China), Djordje Peric and Nemanja Kalajdžic.

Hazim Mehmedic (BIH) achieved the highest number of points of all festival participants last year and was therefore invited as a guest soloist. The absolute star of the festival was Yuri Shishkin from Russia, who impressed the audience greatly with his outstanding interpretations of works from different eras and inspired them with real storms of enthusiasm.

Once again, Slavisa Peric, as organizer, made the 16th edition of “Dani Harmonike” possible.

The next “Akkordeonfest” is scheduled to follow in Graz (Austria) at the beginning of December. Big thanks to Slavisa Peric for his tireless work in the interests of the accordion!