MUSICOLOGICAL DISCOURSE OF VESNA MIKIC (1967–2019) CHARACTERISTICS, EFFECTS, AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Keywords: Vesna Mikic, Musicology, contemporary music, Neoclassicism, techno music, popular music Once upon a time, in a land almost forgotten, and in an interactive (screen) world, there was a musicologist who began her lifelong quest for answering the two main questions: who and how? I start writing this paper, dedicated to Vesna Mikic's musicological and scientific research opus, as well as to her work and her achievements, by paraphrasing her own words1, in her style - by playing... By looking into the extensive list of her papers, or thematic choices from the earliest stages of her career (the first paper was officially published in 1994/1995),22 until, unfortunately, the abrupt end (the last work, as I have emphasized, is in the process of prepress), we are likely to define certain 'stages' in the development of her scientific thought, or, more precisely, to define her choice of the thematic fields that dominate her discourse, in which contemporary music is singled out as an umbrella term.23 Vesna Mikic introduced herself as an inventive interpreter of contemporary music.24 This primarily refers to her interpretation of local music. [...]she found a mechanism for the interpretation of Neoclassicism as a moderate modernistic practice within the context of postwar Serbia, by emphasizing, once more, the meaning of the 'surrounding, extra-musical, social events (supported by music).32 Furthermore, some domestic composers were included in this theoretical frame (Stanojlo Rajcic,33 Milan Ristic,34 Konstantin Babic, Dusan Radic,35 Dejan Despic36). [...]by studying contemporary (local) music practices in the context of Neoclassicism, Vesna Mikic discovered a system for the reinterpretation of the past (tradition, canon) in/and the present, in other words, she found a system for the implementation and revitalization of these connections at a local level.37 Regarding music/art in the age of technological development, the other line of her