Page 205 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2026 Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes.../Composers’ Societies Past and Present...

The Composer’s Association of Macedonia in the past and present …
the unification of Macedonian creative potential as soon as possible was
seen as a necessary condition for the future growth of Macedonian musical
culture. For this purpose, in 1947 the Society of Productive and Reproduc-
6
tive Musicians of the People’s Republic of Macedonia joined the three piv-
otal republican associations of composers of the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (hereafter: SFRY) that were formed in 1945 (the Serbian Asso-
ciation of Composers, the Croatian Society of Composers and the Sloveni-
an Society of Composers). 7
At the founding assembly held at the premises of Radio Skopje on Jan-
uary 19, the first management board was elected from the luminaries of
contemporary Macedonian musical culture: Petre Bogdanov-Kočko (presi-
dent), T. Skalovski (vice-president), Slavko Kostovski (secretary), Vasil Ќor-
tošev (treasurer), Žifko Firfov, Vasil G´akonovski-Špato and Aleksandar Ša-
levski (members). 8
The ambitious commitment and enthusiasm of the members of this
association resulted in the realisation of the first concert of the Society of
Productive and Reproductive Musicians of the People’s Republic of Mac-
9
edonia, held on February 5, 1947. This concert marked the beginning of
the concert activity of the Society, and on May 9 of the same year, the op-
era Cavalleria Rusticana by the Italian composer Pietro Mascagni was pre-
miered in the Macedonian language at the Macedonian National Thea-
tre (hereafter: MNT) on an amateur basis. With this opera, directed by
Branko Primorišac from Belgrade, under the baton of T. Skalovski and
performed by the soloists Elisaveta Savčenko (Santuca), Milka Guševska
(Lola), P. Bogdanov-Kočko (Turidu), Stefan Rusjakov (Alfio) and Ganka
Atanasova-Marković (Lucia), accompanied by the choir and symphony or-
chestra of Radio Skopje and the Student Choir, an unexpected success
10
was achieved in the institutional development of opera on the Macedoni-
an stage. The further foundations of opera in Macedonia were laid with the
Decree of the Ministry of Education on January 1, 1948, when the opera

6 Todor Skalovski, “Denes makedonskite muzičari osnovuat svoe društvo,” Nova
Makedonija, January 1947, 5.
7 Ivana Neimarević and Ksenija Stevanović, SOKOJ – Organizacija muzičkih autora
Srbije: 70 godina (Beograd: Sokoj - Organizacija muzičkih autora Srbije, 2021), 18.
8 Marko Kolovski, Sojuz na kompozitorite na Makedonija 1947–1992: Makedonski
kompozitori i muzikolozi (Skopje: Sojuz na kompozitori na Makedonija, 1993), 5–6.
9 Ibid., 6.
10 Marko Kolovski, “Vo spomen na eden veličestven čin,” Nova Makedonija, November
2017, 1–2.

205