Stefanović, Dimitrije

Dimitrije Stefanović, D.Phil. (Oxon.), musicologist, regular member of SASA
Dimitrije Stefanović, a musicologist and conductor, long-term expert and connoisseur of Orthodox church music, was born in Pančevo on 25 November 1929. He graduated at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade (the Department of English and German) in 1955 and at the Music Academy in Belgrade (the Department of History of Music) in 1956. He obtained his B. Litt. and Ph.D at Oxford University. During postgraduate studies he worked with famous musicologists-Byzantinists Egon Welesz, Henry Tillyard and Oliver Strunk. At the Music Faculty of Oxford University he lectured on Byzantine and Old Slavonic music. As a lecturer and participant at numerous international congresses, he was a guest at many universities in Europe and America. He delivered a large number of lectures on Orthodox and especially Serbian church music, hundreds of popular lectures for different audiences in the country and abroad: at twenty Yugoslav-German choir weeks (1971–1991), twenty Summer Spiritual Academies in the monastery of Studenica, as well as at many Summer Schools of Church Chant ‘In Memory of Kornelije Stanković’.
He spent his working carreer at the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts where he held all research positions from (1958–2000) and as director he lead the Institute for two decades (1979–2000).
He has been a regular member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 1985, corresponding member of JAZU (Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts) since 1986, corresponding member of SAZU (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts) since 1987, secretary in the Department of Stage Art and Music in Matica srpska (1991–2004), vice president of Matica srpska since 2004, and general secretary of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2007, reelected in 2011.
His research concentrated primarily on the study of Orthodox church music – Byzantine and old Slavonic. He focused particularly on discovery, transcription, critical evaluation and publication of medieval documents. As a consequence of the results of this research the date of the written beginning of old Serbian music was moved back to the 15th century. He always connected musicology research with live music practice, both through performance of the discovered chant from the past, and through recording and studying the still alive Serbian church chanting tradition. Apart from numerous studies in Serbian, English, German, French and Russian, Stefanović edited several collections of works from international conferences, and reviewed a series of musicology monographs and collections.
Apart from his work on Orthodox music, he has continuously been engaged in performing both traditional church music. He was the conductor of the Pančevo Serbian Church Singing Society from 1950. He was for many years assistant conductor of Belgrade Academic Choir Branko Krsmanović with whom he toured China in 1957, and the principal conductor of the Belgrade Madrigalists choir. In 1969 he founded the Studio Choir of the Musicology Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, with which he toured numerous places in former Yugoslavia and most of Europe. The choir was the first to perform both newly discovered pieces of Serbian Medieval music, the music of Byzantine, Bulgarian, Russian, Gregorian and Glagolitic traditions and Orthodox choir music of the 19th and 20th centuries little or not at all known within Yugoslavia. Under Stefanovic the choir made several recordings, CDs and TV programmes. With this choir he also took part at numerous services in Orthodox churches and monasteries throughout former Yugoslavia and Europe.
Stefanović was devoted to the restoration of Velika Remeta monastery, where he prepared the exhibition ‘Old Serbian music and Fruška Gora monasteries’. Although he did not officially teach at any university, he has spent innumerable hours with younger colleagues and students, always ready to help and encourage learning and research work.
Stefanović was awarded the Saint Sava medal of the first degree (1990), decorations of Russian and Romanian patriarchs, the Cross of Merits of the Federal Republic of Germany (1991), golden badge of the Music Youth of Yugoslavia.

Books
Manuscripts of Byzantine Chant in Oxford [Coauthor N. G. Wilson] Oxford 1963,
Old Serbian Music, Examples of church hymns from the 15th century, bilingual, Serbian and English, Belgrade 1975.
Духовни разговори са хиландарским монасима. (Spiritual conversations with the monks of Chilandari), third edition, Belgrade 2005.
Reprints
Карловачко појање: Србљак, Триод, Пентикостар (The Chant of Karlovci), Belgrade 1970-1973.
Audio compact disk
Old Serbian Chant. Transcriptions from neumatic manuscripts 15-19th c. Booklet in English, Belgrade 1998..
Bibliography
Годишњак САНУ за 1976. годину, књ. LXXXIII, Београд 1977, 252-258; Годишњак САНУ за 1985. годину, књ. XCII, Београд 1986, 417-419, Годишњак САНУ за 1995. годину. књ. CII, Београд 1996, 521-525, Годишњак САНУ за 2002. годину. књ. CIX, Београд 2003, 385-391.

(June 2011)