Tivat Town Orchestra

MUSICAL TRADITION Tivat Town Orchestra FOR YOUNG AND OLD!

Formed at the beginning of the 20th Century, when Montenegro existed as part of the AustroHungarian Empire, the city orchestra or is a staple of Tivat’s cultural identity! We sat down for a chat with Boris Francesković, the president of the Tivat Educational & Music Society, to find out more about this important fixture of Tivat’s traditional music scene!

AN EVER-GROWING ASSORTMENT OF MUSIC LOVERS AND PERFORMERS

We first asked Boris to give us a little history of the orchestra, and how it has changed and adapted over the years.

The orchestra was formed at the very beginning of the 20th century, in 1891, when we lived in Austria-Hungary, when there were only a dozen houses on the waterfront in Tivat. The first orchestra did not have the form of a city music group, and was made up of only 14 people - two violins, two flutes, clarinets, trumpets and a double bass.

It is, I can say, the only orchestra which grew and was upgraded, and the number of musicians increased to reach the level and structure of a city music orchestra.

It was formed by Antun Žeželjić. I would like to mention that the violin on which Žeželjić played is still in the possession of city music, it has been preserved and can still be played!

From it’s humble beginnings at the turn of the Century, the orchestra has since grown to around 50 members! We wanted to learn a bit more about the members - whether they all came from traditional music training backgrounds and if they performed as amateurs of professionals.

All members are amateurs in terms of their motivation to play. No one receives any Income playing in the music education society. So, from that aspect, they are amateurs, and of course, some have music education - a love of music and the city.

The Music Education Society has 45-50 members. However, depending on the outside obligations of the members when it comes to performance time, we are not always in complete composition. For example, in the last performance, we had 34 members perform.

The oldest member is 86 years old, and we recently sent him into retirement, deservedly, while the youngest member is 11 years old. It isn’t easy to reconcile age differences in the orchestra because it entails working with all the differences. However, if we look past the age differences, it is the love for music, the city, and the uniform that is important!

A MARCH FOR EVERY OCCASION!

We then moved on to discuss the orchestra’s role today and the challenges that are faced when running such an important cultural institution.

Since it’s conception the orchestra has been a part of a great number of different cultural and traditional events, ranging from state anniversaries & holidays to military events and even funerals!

Boris estimates that there are around 50 performances per year!

On his favourite of the orchestra’s marches, Boris had this to say:

Programs change over the years, and some of them have been played for 50 years. They are traditional coastal marches. They all originated from military marches because the march was needed for an army parade, line-ups and for military events: parade step, march step, anthem, and all the related melodies. And in recent times, the rhythm of the march, which is a modern melody written in the form of a march, and the recognizable melody adapted to these ceremonies, changed the very structure of the masses. It isn’t easy to single out, but the Radecki march is traditionally played at New Year’s concerts.